#its not a subtext it's clear text is something i never expected to hear from jensen ackles

[drulalovescas]

We've come a long LONG way

And so did Jensen to be honest

[ellycd]

Representation Matters?

I'm kinda tired now, but hear me out.

Growing up, I've always been surrounded by books. Movies. Narratives. Stories. And while they took me to far-off worlds and show me unrealistic but kind of cute relationships between characters, I've known, or felt, that there was always something missing even though I didn't know what it was. I had only realized it when I watched a sports anime back in high school and started wondering about how intricate and deep these two characters' relationship were and imagined what if there was something more? Of course this started the shipping phase, seeing the potential of relationships going a level deeper, more complicated. At first platonically, and then romantically. Because both were delicate and very much valid. But this was different, because I was wondering about two boys, rather than a girl and a boy, which I very much grew up with.

And then I started reading fanfiction, ones that had two canonically platonic, even queerplatonic, same sex characters getting together or realizing how much they meant to each other that they couldn't really stay as friends, because they were in love . Those kind. I started reading BL and GL Manga because they had that kind of dynamic I was starting to look for. But almost all of them were romance focused, there was always sex, and had all that love story shenanigans, even the problematic ones. At this point I was getting tired of romance centered plotlines, but I devoured them because I was searching for that one thing I never knew I needed: queer stories. Why?

At first, I thought it was because by then I had already talked to queer people, heard their stories; their struggles. By the time I entered college, I started fighting for them, with them. I wanted queer stories for the LGBTQ+ community because they deserved to be represented and heard. It was my only reason for some time, until it just wasn't.

I searched for queer stories because I was in the closet.

I was in the midst of an identity crisis, and I guess, subconsciously, I was looking for comfort, perhaps solace, a pat on the back, some words of encouragement.. not just for them, but for me.

But I realized there was not much to see especially in TV series and books. I realized I'd have to spend my time searching for queer stories that weren't so sexualized, mocked or even made fun of. And in the midst of all that, I realized those stories weren't so much told because they were considered taboo and abnormal in the real world. And it hurt. It hurt because I realized I was queer, and our existence didn't matter so much that it wouldn't warrant any good representation, and even if there were, there were only scraps of it, buried deep into ink blotted papers of forgotten books or even passing dialogues in television series and movies. And there were so little I was even already happy with mere passing comments of actors and directors and authors confirming queer coded characters and plot lines.

And then, I came to know queerbaiting. It was different from shipping characters together, at least for me. It gave me false hopes, and then it made me feel bad about it because I tried to see past the platonic due to the subtext. Don't get me wrong. I love platonic and queerplatonic relationships, even moreso between a girl and a boy (more on that matter some time) but I always feel robbed despite it because I've always been surrounded by that kind of relationship especially between two girls or two boys. Merlin and Arthur? John and Sherlock? Spock and Kirk? Hell, animes are full of them. Naruto and Sasuke, most sports anime (really, all those tension? You expect me not to ship them as more than friends?). They were lovely platonic and queerplatonic ships that I cared so much about. But was it too much to ask for some romantic queer relationships that were built on trust and friendship? I guess it was.

(I'd always wanted to point out that romantic ships between two men or women don't invalidate platonic and even queerplatonic ships, especially canon ones, and hoping a romantic one over a platonic one doesn't necessarily mean one is inferior over the other, and I know that it applies vice versa as well.)

Then Yuri On Ice came, and I thought it was just another queerbaited sports anime, but it proved me wrong. I remember crying in the bathroom after one scene that confirmed queerness and a queer romantic relationship which wasn't even sexualized or mocked. It felt like as if my heart would burst because after all those years, i felt so validated. I felt so alive. I realized how ashamed I was for who I am, and someone, something, telling me in the most profound way that I existed, that I mattered enough to be represented, that I matter , was a defining moment of my growth: I am queer and I am here.

Books with queer characters made its way to my local bookstore (Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, the Proxy series, The Red Queen Series, The Song of Achilles, there were so many I was moved when I saw them in the stands, not hidden, but there for the world to see). It became clear to me just how much I was deprived. More and more TV series came forward with their own queer characters and stories . Person of Interest's, Root and Shaw was one of my favorites. Connor and Oliver from How to Get Away with Murder, Grey's Anatomy handling of queer characters, Korra and Asami from Legend of Korra, even Steven Universe and games like Stardew Valley where we can make our own narrative. I even watch Thai BL now. There were so much content now that my younger self would have loved and accepted, and I know, from my soul, they would have felt like they belonged.

For the first time in a long time, I am a bit hopeful, even just a little bit.

There's still prejudice, homophobia and fear lurking in the storytelling industry - whether that be books, games, movies, comics, or series. I doubt that would even go away. Hell, I still see some people invalidate romantic ships when it's canonically platonic. I still see queerbaiting. I still feel hopeless in terms of representation. Sometimes I still even invalidate myself. It's hard, to be frank. It's a heavy thing to carry. Wanting to feel alive, wanting to be reminded that I am valid despite my own queerness and in spite of it, wanting for at least a little comfort, for a little representation.

I'm into Supernatural now. And while the meta writers have spent years trying to predict or at least understand the text and subtext between Cas and Dean, and then seeing that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance it might be different this time, that perhaps they can be endgame after all, I'm 99% sure that probably won't happen. Perhaps platonically it will soar, and it will be added to the long list of deep platonic relationships with genius subtext. And while I'll be glad with it, I'll even probably devour it, I know a part of me will be disappointed, a sinking feeling rising in my gut as my lips move and Ill say, "Oh. It was an almost".

I'm used to being deprived, and the worst part of it? It isn't fine, but I have to suck up and be okay with it.

But perhaps, one day I'll stop apologizing for wanting a bit more good representation and respect.

Perhaps one day I'll stop apologizing for who I am.

And maybe, just maybe, one day, we wouldn't have to debate whether we should exist or not

- in creative spaces, narratives and other alternate worlds that stemmed from our ability to recreate stories and mirror human life.

Maybe one day we'll even be able to exist without question.

Maybe one day.

[firesign23]

Trope mash up: detective au + poorly timed confession

Okay, so, a few notes first. I got this mash-up (detective AU + poorly timed confession) and it so perfectly fit my plans for Cocks and Robbers (not its real title, I promise) that I was like “Damn.” So then I decided to write a version of a scene that will eventually be part of a longer fic. In theory. The basic premise of which is FBI-agent-equivalent Jaime has struck up an unlikely friendship with Detective Tarth of the King’s Landing PD after they worked the kidnapping of the Stark girls together three years previously. Simmering attraction, blahblah, Jaime gets caught in a bank robbery/hostage situation, manages to notify Brienne’s captain/his close friend as it started, blahblah, y’all know this trope.

Trope mash up: detective au + poorly timed confession

(Below the cut for length)

Jaime looks around the office, assessing each of his fellow hostages. The group has formed a near-circle, though none have been brave or foolish enough to put their backs to the door where one of the robbers stands sentinel. The man is watching the corridor, not the hostages, his fingers tapping the barrel of his rifle in a strange staccato. Amateur, then. Or possibly just cocky.

Of the hostages, six of them are some degree of hysterical, ranging from slightly upset (one of the tellers) to about-to-lose-their-shit-and-get-someone-shot-in-the-process (the bank president); the only one who isn’t is the bank security guard, a crude man who is eyeing Jaime with the same sort of assessing gaze. Blackwater, says his nametag. Jaime hopes like fuck he’s uninterested in getting shot--he’s the closest thing Jaime has to an ally at the moment.

Shuffling back slightly so his back is against the heavy oak desk, he manages to slip his phone from his sock, where he’d stuffed it as the robbery began. He doesn’t want this noticed, hopes like hell none of the others see it and ask questions. The quickest glance tells him his text chain with Addam is still on-screen--he mutes the output and hits the call button, then shoves the phone beneath the edge of the desk. It should be good enough to pick up the conversation in the room, give the police outside some idea of what’s going on, at least in this room.

He runs a hand over his face, eyes roving around the room once more. He's trained for this possibility, it’s part of the job, but he never expected to have to use it. Not for what was supposed to be a routine trip to the bank. He hadn’t even stopped for coffee this morning. He just hopes it’s enough, hopes he can keep order before someone fucks up and gets hurt, or--experience warns him--gets someone else hurt.

*

Brienne isn’t entirely sure how long they have been sitting in the surveillance van, waiting for Ops to get a video feed inside the bank. Too fucking long, by any reckoning.

She’s contemplating whether she can just walk into the damn building and fuck the consequences when Addam’s phone rings.

“It’s Jaime,” he says, and for a moment Brienne thinks that maybe he’s inside but not--

Addam answers, muting the mic and putting it on speaker in one swift movement, hooking it up to the computers in the van, and Jaime’s voice comes through. She’s never been so glad for his expensive taste in technology--he’s distant, as if he’s hidden the phone nearby, but the sound is clear.

“Hey,” Jaime says, interrupting low murmurs—the other hostages. “If we’re going to be stuck in Edd’s office, why don’t we go around, tell everyone our names? We might as well know who we’re stuck here with. The guy at the door isn’t going to mind.”

Edd. Bank president. Brienne writes it down, shoves it at one of the officers in the van with them. It should help, knowing where the hostages are being held. There’s a frisson of… not excitement, this is too dangerous to be excited about, but it’s something. Jaime leads the conversation, the voices in varying degrees of clarity, but he is always clear, his words layered in subtext that Brienne and Addam are able to parse. There are seven hostages in addition to Jaime, a single man guarding the door to the office where they are being held. Jaime manages to convey that there were at least three more, all armed, and he has no idea where any of them are. Nobody is injured. Yet. It’s something.

The conversation dies away, but even through the phone Brienne can tell that people are getting restless, panicked. Panicked people are dangerous. They make stupid decisions and people get hurt. Jaime must notice too, because he speaks again, in that same level, soothing tone. Panicked people are dangerous, but they can be controlled.

“Listen,” he says. “Every single one of us has a reason to walk out that door safely. Let’s focus on that, okay? Jeyne, what about you? What is waiting for you?”

Brienne listens as the group takes turns talking about the thing that means the most to them, the thing worth living for. Friends. Family. One of the women mentions that she has a cross-stitch she’s never found the time to finish. Another talks of the holiday she has booked, her first one since her husband passed away the year before. Jaime keeps them talking, engaged, distracted. Brienne tries to pick up hints of the situation inside the bank, keep her mind on the task at hand, but there is an aching humanness in the conversation that sets a strange lump in her breast.

“What about you, Jaime?”

It’s one of the women that asks. He’s avoided talking about himself up til now.

“I have a cat,” he says, a familiar gentle fondness in his voice. It’s a good line. True, but not revealing. “Giant grey tom called Honor. I rescued him in the Vale last winter. Well, I didn’t. I was with a friend--”

“You fucking her? This friend of yours.” It’s one of the men. Bronn, she thinks, the security guard. She doesn’t even want to imagine why his mind went there, but it keeps the conversation moving. Someone titters, a nervous laugh but a laugh all the same.

“I never said it was a woman,” Jaime replies dryly.

“It’s always a woman,” says the man. “That’s a no, then. You wanna fuck her?”

This time, Jaime ignores the comment entirely. “We had to head back early, before a snowstorm hit, and it was dark and late and fucking freezing, and she insi--”

“Told you it was a woman.”

“--insisted on checking the car before we moved. Said animals would sleep anywhere when it was that cold. Of course, she was right. She found this scrawny little kitten tucked around the engine and…”

Brienne knows the way he smiles at this part of the story, the unaffected little shrug he gives as if to say what else could we do? One of the women laughs genuinely, despite the circumstances. Jaime has that effect on people.

“The friend can’t have pets at her place, so he came home with me. He’s mouthy and stubborn, so I tried to name him after… well, she didn’t like that. And Meticulous Pain In My Ass was too unwieldy, so Honor it was.”

There’s a softness in his voice by the end, an affection that she knows is about more than the most spoiled feline in King’s Landing.

“Sounds like you have more than the cat waiting for you,” says one of the women, startling Brienne. “She must be very lucky.”

She expects him to object, or play it off, but Jaime is simply silent for a long moment. “She’s extraordinary,” he finally says. There is a raw honesty that she rarely associates with him in his tone. “She doesn’t know that I... She should be told.”

And she knows, objectively, that he is talking about her. She’d held that little kitten halfway to King’s Landing before they’d found a place to stop and buy supplies, it’s not like she can forget that. She can even, in that distant part of her that is not entirely focused on the job, acknowledge the implications of what he is saying. She can’t deal with them, but she can acknowledge them. It isn’t until Addam looks at her though, far too much sympathy in his eyes to be coming from her captain, that she realises.

Jaime doesn’t know she is here. His words are meant for Addam, not for her. A message to pass on, if the worst happens. He doesn’t… however calm his voice, however clever his communication, he doesn’t think he’ll be walking out of that bank alive.

And his last-- no.

“Take five, Tarth,” orders Addam, brisk but not unkind. “It’s your turn to grab the coffees.”

She doesn’t want to go, doesn’t want to risk missing… She doesn’t want to go, but she can’t stay either, can’t sit in this cramped little van listening to his voice knowing it might be the last time she hears it.

Not when he’s just admitted he loves her.

Fanfiction Trope MASH-UP

[tomhiddleslove]

How can a naked space seem so full? Feelings furnish the stage in the resplendently spare new production of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal,” which opened on Thursday night at the Bernard Jacobs Theater, and they shimmer, bend and change color like light streaming through a prism.

Directed by Jamie Lloyd — and acted with surgical precision by Tom Hiddleston, Zawe Ashton and Charlie Cox — this stripped-down revival of Pinter’s 1978 tale of a sexual triangle places its central characters under microscopic scrutiny, with no place to hide. Especially not from one another, as everybody is on everybody else’s mind, all the time. They are also all almost always fully visible to the audience.

This British version is the most merciless and empathic interpretation of this much performed work I’ve seen, and it keeps returning to my thoughts in piercing shards, like the remnants of a too-revealing dream. I had heard good things about this “Betrayal” when it debuted in London earlier this year, but I didn’t expect it to be one of those rare shows I seem destined to think about forever.

“Betrayal” was dismissed as lightweight by Pinter standards when it opened at the National Theater in London four decades ago, and hearing it described baldly, you can sort of understand why. The high concept pitch could be: “Love among the literati in London leads to disaster, when a publisher discovers his wife is having an affair with his best friend!”

True, the play had an unusual structure, with its reverse chronology. (It begins in 1977 and ends in 1968.) Early critics regarded this as an unnecessary and confusing gimmick. As for all that brittle, passion-concealing wit and straight-faced deception, wasn’t that the stuff of old-guard West End masters like Coward and Rattigan?

With subsequent productions and a first-rate film in 1983 — featuring Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley and Patricia Hodge — earlier naysayers began to perceive a creeping depth and delicacy in the work, which for me now ranks among Pinter’s finest. Curiously, despite three starry productions (the most recent led by Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz), “Betrayal” has never been done full justice on Broadway.

Until now.

Mr. Lloyd’s interpretation balances surface elegance with an aching profundity, so that “Betrayal” becomes less about the anguish of love than of life itself. Specifically, I mean life as lived among people whom we can never truly know. That includes those closest to us; it also includes our own, elusive selves.

The three central characters here are Robert (Mr. Hiddleston); Emma (Ms. Ashton), his wife, a gallerist; and Jerry (Mr. Cox), a literary agent who was the best man at their wedding. Though the majority of the scenes are written for two, Mr. Lloyd keeps all his main characters onstage throughout. (He has also taken the liberty of introducing a fifth, silent character, in addition to the Italian waiter, played with gusto by Eddie Arnold, who appears in the original text.)

That means that when Jerry and Emma are in the rented, out-of-the-way flat where they meet in the afternoons, Robert is present as well — silent, unreacting and at some distance from the others, but undeniably there.

The hoary saying about three being a crowd comes to mind. But then sexual betrayal is inevitably crowded, isn’t it? The absent figure in the triangle is always there as an obstructive phantom, so that no interactions are unconditionally between two people. To borrow from Michael Frayn, whose “Passion Play” is my other favorite 20th-century drama about infidelity, adultery adulterates.

Mr. Lloyd’s “Betrayal” makes us feel this premise all the more acutely, by offering no distractions from the wounded and wounding souls at it center. As designed by the ever-ingenious Soutra Gilmour, and lighted with whispering subtlety by Jon Clark, the set remains a sort of modernist blank slate, like an abandoned contemporary showroom — or, perhaps, laboratory. Nor do the cast members ever change their clothes.

This means the focus is unflinchingly on how these friends and lovers behave, and on the distance between them (wonderfully underscored by a slyly, slowly moving stage). What they say is often as trivial as the most basic small talk. In Pinter, the greatest dramatic weight lies in what’s unspoken, in the darkness of unsorted feelings.

The three principal performers here allow us uncommon access to that darkness. They each achieve a state of heightened emotional transparency. And what we see, in their faces and bodies, and feel — in the less easily described energy that reaches across the footlights — is a harsh and beautiful muddle.

Pinter, like Chekhov, understood that reactions never come singly (though the shrilly opinionated discourse on social media today might lead you to think otherwise). The word “ambivalence” doesn’t begin to cover the thoughts in play in the first scene, when Jerry and Emma uneasily meet in a pub, two years after their affair has ended.

Emma has initiated this encounter. But as played with breathtakingly clear confusion by Ms. Ashton, she can’t explain why she did so. She’s looking for something she misplaced once, or let time carry off, but you know she can’t put her finger on what it is.

As played by the excellent Mr. Cox (best known here as television’s “Daredevil”), Jerry is less palpably unmoored; he would seem to have a thicker skin. And this shifts the center of “Betrayal” to its portrait of a marriage and its corrosive secrets.

As slender and sharp as a paring knife in his dark navy clothing, Mr. Hiddleston’s lacerating Robert seems to live in a state of existential mourning. He can be wittily combative, most memorably in a brilliantly staged restaurant scene with Jerry.

But you’re always aware of the regrets, the uneasiness, the sorrow behind the unbending facade. The scene in a Venice hotel room when he ever so gently, confronts Emma with evidence of her infidelity is almost too painful to watch. What you are witnessing is the conclusive collapse of a marriage’s fragile and necessary structure of illusions.

As a marquee name of films and tabloids, Mr. Hiddleston is the obvious draw here. But it’s the relatively little-known Ms. Ashton (who is also a playwright) who is the breakout star. And her deeply sensitive performance elicits a feminist subtext in “Betrayal.”

Power is a governing dynamic in Pinter. And I’ve seen productions in which Emma, as the only female onstage, emerges as a crushable odd-woman out in a boy’s club society. It’s telling that in this production she is the only major character who doesn’t wear a jacket or, more surprisingly, shoes.

She reads as more vulnerable because of this, but also as more humane and more open to figuring out just what has happened. Emma wants so much — professionally, romantically, domestically. And she’s harrowed by the realization that nothing she thought she had has ever been solidly hers.

More than ever in this version, which features a melancholy soundscape by Ben and Max Ringham, “Betrayal” becomes an elegy about time and memory, in which nothing stays fixed or certain. There’s new resonance to the continuing references to a joyful moment when Jerry threw Emma and Robert’s little girl into the air at a family gathering.

It’s mentioned in the very first scene, when Emma and Jerry meet again. The problem is they can’t agree on where the event happened, in his kitchen or hers.

Ms. Ashton’s Emma tries to conceal how much this small discrepancy upsets her, but her eyes are brimming. She thought she’d always at least have this memory intact — a vision of everyone, together, happy for a moment. It turns out she was mistaken.

-

[ Link to the full article in source below. ]

[insanityclause]

How can a naked space seem so full? Feelings furnish the stage in the resplendently spare new production of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal,” which opened on Thursday night at the Bernard Jacobs Theater, and they shimmer, bend and change color like light streaming through a prism.

Directed by Jamie Lloyd — and acted with surgical precision by Tom Hiddleston, Zawe Ashton and Charlie Cox — this stripped-down revival of Pinter’s 1978 tale of a sexual triangle places its central characters under microscopic scrutiny, with no place to hide. Especially not from one another, as everybody is on everybody else’s mind, all the time. They are also all almost always fully visible to the audience.

This British version is the most merciless and empathic interpretation of this much performed work I’ve seen, and it keeps returning to my thoughts in piercing shards, like the remnants of a too-revealing dream. I had heard good things about this “Betrayal” when it debuted in London earlier this year, but I didn’t expect it to be one of those rare shows I seem destined to think about forever.

“Betrayal” was dismissed as lightweight by Pinter standards when it opened at the National Theater in London four decades ago, and hearing it described baldly, you can sort of understand why. The high concept pitch could be: “Love among the literati in London leads to disaster, when a publisher discovers his wife is having an affair with his best friend!”

True, the play had an unusual structure, with its reverse chronology. (It begins in 1977 and ends in 1968.) Early critics regarded this as an unnecessary and confusing gimmick. As for all that brittle, passion-concealing wit and straight-faced deception, wasn’t that the stuff of old-guard West End masters like Coward and Rattigan?

With subsequent productions and a first-rate film in 1983 — featuring Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley and Patricia Hodge — earlier naysayers began to perceive a creeping depth and delicacy in the work, which for me now ranks among Pinter’s finest. Curiously, despite three starry productions (the most recent led by Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz), “Betrayal” has never been done full justice on Broadway.

Until now.

Mr. Lloyd’s interpretation balances surface elegance with an aching profundity, so that “Betrayal” becomes less about the anguish of love than of life itself. Specifically, I mean life as lived among people whom we can never truly know. That includes those closest to us; it also includes our own, elusive selves.

The three central characters here are Robert (Mr. Hiddleston); Emma (Ms. Ashton), his wife, a gallerist; and Jerry (Mr. Cox), a literary agent who was the best man at their wedding. Though the majority of the scenes are written for two, Mr. Lloyd keeps all his main characters onstage throughout. (He has also taken the liberty of introducing a fifth, silent character, in addition to the Italian waiter, played with gusto by Eddie Arnold, who appears in the original text.)

That means that when Jerry and Emma are in the rented, out-of-the-way flat where they meet in the afternoons, Robert is present as well — silent, unreacting and at some distance from the others, but undeniably there.

The hoary saying about three being a crowd comes to mind. But then sexual betrayal is inevitably crowded, isn’t it? The absent figure in the triangle is always there as an obstructive phantom, so that no interactions are unconditionally between two people. To borrow from Michael Frayn, whose “Passion Play” is my other favorite 20th-century drama about infidelity, adultery adulterates.

Mr. Lloyd’s “Betrayal” makes us feel this premise all the more acutely, by offering no distractions from the wounded and wounding souls at it center. As designed by the ever-ingenious Soutra Gilmour, and lighted with whispering subtlety by Jon Clark, the set remains a sort of modernist blank slate, like an abandoned contemporary showroom — or, perhaps, laboratory. Nor do the cast members ever change their clothes.

This means the focus is unflinchingly on how these friends and lovers behave, and on the distance between them (wonderfully underscored by a slyly, slowly moving stage). What they say is often as trivial as the most basic small talk. In Pinter, the greatest dramatic weight lies in what’s unspoken, in the darkness of unsorted feelings.

The three principal performers here allow us uncommon access to that darkness. They each achieve a state of heightened emotional transparency. And what we see, in their faces and bodies, and feel — in the less easily described energy that reaches across the footlights — is a harsh and beautiful muddle.

Pinter, like Chekhov, understood that reactions never come singly (though the shrilly opinionated discourse on social media today might lead you to think otherwise). The word “ambivalence” doesn’t begin to cover the thoughts in play in the first scene, when Jerry and Emma uneasily meet in a pub, two years after their affair has ended.

Emma has initiated this encounter. But as played with breathtakingly clear confusion by Ms. Ashton, she can’t explain why she did so. She’s looking for something she misplaced once, or let time carry off, but you know she can’t put her finger on what it is.

As played by the excellent Mr. Cox (best known here as television’s “Daredevil”), Jerry is less palpably unmoored; he would seem to have a thicker skin. And this shifts the center of “Betrayal” to its portrait of a marriage and its corrosive secrets.

As slender and sharp as a paring knife in his dark navy clothing, Mr. Hiddleston’s lacerating Robert seems to live in a state of existential mourning. He can be wittily combative, most memorably in a brilliantly staged restaurant scene with Jerry.

But you’re always aware of the regrets, the uneasiness, the sorrow behind the unbending facade. The scene in a Venice hotel room when he ever so gently, confronts Emma with evidence of her infidelity is almost too painful to watch. What you are witnessing is the conclusive collapse of a marriage’s fragile and necessary structure of illusions.

As a marquee name of films and tabloids, Mr. Hiddleston is the obvious draw here. But it’s the relatively little-known Ms. Ashton (who is also a playwright) who is the breakout star. And her deeply sensitive performance elicits a feminist subtext in “Betrayal.”

Power is a governing dynamic in Pinter. And I’ve seen productions in which Emma, as the only female onstage, emerges as a crushable odd-woman out in a boy’s club society. It’s telling that in this production she is the only major character who doesn’t wear a jacket or, more surprisingly, shoes.

She reads as more vulnerable because of this, but also as more humane and more open to figuring out just what has happened. Emma wants so much — professionally, romantically, domestically. And she’s harrowed by the realization that nothing she thought she had has ever been solidly hers.

More than ever in this version, which features a melancholy soundscape by Ben and Max Ringham, “Betrayal” becomes an elegy about time and memory, in which nothing stays fixed or certain. There’s new resonance to the continuing references to a joyful moment when Jerry threw Emma and Robert’s little girl into the air at a family gathering.

It’s mentioned in the very first scene, when Emma and Jerry meet again. The problem is they can’t agree on where the event happened, in his kitchen or hers.

Ms. Ashton’s Emma tries to conceal how much this small discrepancy upsets her, but her eyes are brimming. She thought she’d always at least have this memory intact — a vision of everyone, together, happy for a moment. It turns out she was mistaken.

[ettadunham]

A Buffy rewatch 3x17 Enemies

aka bad break-ups

Welcome to this dailyish text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and rant about it in 10-3k words. What you can expect: long run-on sentences and disjointed observations, often focused on one tiny detail about the episode. What you shouldn’t be expecting: actual reviews that make sense.

And today’s episode finally brings Buffy and Faith’s relationship to a breaking point, in all of its subtextual glory. Meanwhile, I kept rewinding as I tried remembering where the layers of deception started, and the “they don’t know that we know that she doesn’t know that we know” games ended.

And I guess the honest answer is that I still don’t know. The episode doesn’t really end with a flashback answering at what point did the characters realize that something was off… But that’s also part of the fun, as one tries to look for the small signs they could’ve noted as well.

First of all, let’s just all acknowledge this delightful outfit:

We’re entering the stage of truly iconic Willow looks, folks.

Anywho, back to the Fath/Buffy/Angel mind games

Not to toot my own horn and say I told you so (like some characters), but by the end of the episode, I once again got stuck on the deliberate parallel drawn between Angel and Faith as Buffy’s love interests. It’s no coincidence that Buffy asks for a break between her and Angel just when her relationship with Faith has completely fallen apart.

During this rewatch I definitely got the impression that Buffy’s decision there was more of a result of where the whole thing with Faith left her emotionally, than Angel pretending to be bad for the episode. His betrayal was fake and pre-agreed upon. Faith’s was real and devastating.

I guess there’s also a weird BDSM theme here with the comments they make around the chains… So if we roll with that, the comparison is that Buffy and Angel had their safe words there. With Faith… not so much.

To drive the point home that Buffy’s conflict here is with Faith, and this is all about that broken trust, let’s also look at the scene between her and Willow, where she’s talking about seeing Faith and Angel together the night before.

Willow: No way. I know what you're thinking and no way! Buffy: You're right. Faith would never do that. Willow: Faith would totally do that.

We again see here Willow’s clear dislike of Faith, which I find especially fun as we also have Xander voicing some of his classic anti-Angel sentiments in the same episode. I do hope that I’ll have the energy to delve a bit more into that a few episodes from now.

But more importantly, look at Buffy’s line. Her response to the idea of Angel and Faith getting it on isn’t that Angel wouldn’t do that. (Remember, Angel, her boyfriend, the one who’d be cheating on her?)

It’s Faith wouldn’t do that. Faith wouldn’t do that to her.

The conclusion one can draw from that is that either she doesn’t trust Angel to begin with, or that her trust and faith in… well, Faith, is much more important to her right now. Personally? I’m leaning towards the latter.

There’s once again a lot of innuendos as well. (That we’re calling subtext for some reason, even though the sexual and romantic undertones are essentially textual at this point…) Like after Buffy and Angel come out of the movie theater, all full of pent up sexual frustration, and Faith shows up to steal Buffy away literally saying “Don’t worry big guy, just keeping her warm for you”.

I’m…

Faith: *does or says something that defines her relationship with Buffy in an undeniably sexual / romantic way*

me:

And then when they meet up at the library afterwards, and Faith does her usual routine of calling Buffy “girlfriend”, and is all touchy with her… Buffy shies away from her touch, and the rest of the Scoobies note how chilly the atmosphere suddenly became.

All that is to say that while Angel plays a prominent role in how this episode unfolds, and the parallel raised between him and Faith aren’t just serving the theme of Buffy’s relationships with them, but both of their characters as well… The real conflict itself plays out between Buffy and Faith, with all of its subtextual and romantic undertones that the show is once again leaning into.

It’s a break-up. It’s Buffy and Faith breaking up. That’s what’s happening here.

Something that I was struggling with however, is pinpointing where Buffy or even Angel and Giles started suspecting that there was something else going on with Faith. When Faith goes to Angel first, I was still unsure on where he was coming from, so I kept looking for signs that he was already reading her intentions. In retrospect though, I assume that Angel’s reactions there were actually genuine, despite Faith laying it on all pretty thick.

On the other hand, she also appeared with bloody hands after killing sympathetic demon guy who tried to help against the Mayor. So that was probably a dead giveaway once Buffy and Angel started putting two and two together.

With Buffy herself, there’s a pretty great little detail that happens when she and Faith discover dead demon guy in his apartment. (Which I wish I noticed myself, but was pointed out to me by someone else.)

Faith reaches into the other room for the light switch, not even looking, and Buffy sees her doing it. She completely gives away herself and the fact that she was in this apartment before, and the show smartly doesn’t draw our attention to it.

So when Buffy afterwards comments about how the way the demon guy was killed was ‘somebody’s idea of a party’, I couldn’t help wondering if that was a pointed jab at Faith. To get a reaction out of her and confirm whether or not she was involved.

Still, I remained unsure as we actually get the scene between Buffy and Willow after this happens. It’s also implied that Buffy hasn’t actually talked to Angel about what she saw between him and Faith the other night at that point, so they haven’t yet had the chance to cook up their Faith reveal plan.

On the other hand, she’s talking to Willow here, and we find out later that Buffy, Angel and Giles were all keeping their suspicions and the plan a secret from the rest of the Scoobies. So she wouldn’t have told that Willow quite yet either way.

Willow also comments about Buffy being “on edge”, which once again points to her probably thinking about Faith going rogue already here.

I do believe that Buffy’s “Faith wouldn’t do that” line is genuine though, even in that case. Buffy still wants to believe in Faith, even if they’re preparing for the worst.

So when Angel and Faith show up in her room, part of her must be devastated as the confirmation of Faith’s betrayal sinks in. As well as just being on edge, knowing what’s coming.

And what’s coming is a whole lot of classic posturing and sexual innuendo from Faith’s part, as she’s tempting Buffy with making out with Angel in front of her just to spite her (we already established which of their betrayals sting for Buffy more…), and being very up-close and personal with a supposedly chained up Buffy.

There’s a lot more going on in this scene of course, with Faith somewhat sarcastically rambling about her horrible childhood, and Buffy delivering some pointed jabs about being better than Faith, or Faith only being able to turn Angel to her side with a magic. We once again see proof of just how low and fragile Faith’s self-esteem actually is, and how easy it is to hurt her, despite what she claims.

I guess Faith’s speech about how she constantly felt inferior to Buffy is especially worth repeating:

Faith: You know, I come to Sunnydale. I'm the Slayer. I do my job kicking ass better than anyone. What do I hear about everywhere I go? Buffy. So I slay, I behave, I do the good little girl routine. And who's everybody thank? Buffy. Buffy: It's not my fault. Faith: Everybody always asks, why can't you be more like Buffy? But did anyone ever ask if you could be more like me? Angel: I know I didn't. Faith: You get the Watcher. You get the mom. You get the little Scooby gang. What do I get? Jack squat. This is supposed to be my town!

It’s one of those lines, where you’re not exactly sure how much the character actually believes of what they’re saying. Faith putting on Buffy the fact that she was unable to connect especially rings false, when you think about just how hard Buffy worked to have that connection with Faith.

But there’s also no denying in that Faith feels like the world let her down. And that includes Buffy. Because despite Buffy’s best efforts, she could never take Faith’s side unconditionally. She could never be just like her.

Buffy doesn’t have the luxury of losing herself in someone else, or to choose them over her responsibilities. (Well, I guess we’ll have to re-examine that in a few seasons from now though…) She needed Faith to meet her halfway, but Faith was already too far gone to turn around for that.

But hey, at least Faith’s got a new apartment out of the deal as of last episode. Evil does take MasterCard I guess.

[mst3kproject]

912: The Screaming Skull

This is another episode where the movie didn’t really leave an impression.  I remember the Gumby short, mostly on account of the bots’ traumatized reaction, and Tom Servo’s proboscis is one of those images that never goes away. But The Screaming Skull itself?  About the only thing I remembered about it was that it was in black and white.

Newlyweds Eric and Jenny pull up in the Electronic Car of Tomorrow outside their stately new home.  This house belonged to Eric’s previous wife, Marion, and Eric inherited it after she died in suspicious circumstances.  It doesn’t take long before Jenny begins seeing signs that Marion’s spirit is not at rest and does not approve of Eric’s decision to re-marry. Maybe it’s just Mickey, the disabled gardener who doesn’t quite understand that Marion’s dead.  Or maybe it’s Eric himself, who murdered his previous wife for her money and is planning to do the same thing to Jenny… but sssh, we’re not supposed to have seen that coming.

This movie gets one thing really, really right – and that’s the fucking peacocks.  Peacocks look pretty, but those shiny feathers cover up actual angry velociraptors who scream like the restless dead.  I stayed at a house in Italy where the owner kept peacocks and hearing them for the first time at two in the morning scared years off my life. They will also steal your food right out of your hands and drop it in the dirt without eating it, just because they’re assholes.

Other than that... my god, this is a dull, gloomy little movie.  It tries so hard to build suspense and all it builds is melatonin. Hearing a mysterious knock on the door once or twice is spooky.  Hearing it four or five or six times just draws our attention to the fact that it’s the same sound clip playing over and over.  Mickey is never believable as a threatening figure, while Eric, looming over Jenny with his I-know-what’s-best-for-you attitude, is so threatening and does things that are so obviously bad for her, you never believe in his innocence for a moment.

The fact that we know very well it’s Eric doing all the ‘haunting’ actually makes some of what’s going on quite funny.  For example, the bit with the repeated knocking.  You can picture him knocking and hiding in the bushes, counting to twenty and starting to wonder if Jenny is coming, and reaching out to knock again before once again leaping off the front step to hide.  Over and over again.  Then there’s the skull itself… is it supposed to be a real human skull?  If so, whose is it?  It can’t be Marion’s because her grave hasn’t been disturbed.  Where did he get it from?  How does the jaw stay attached?  Movies never think about this stuff.

Eric is a really repulsive figure, denying Jenny her autonomy and constantly pushing her to get worse.  Having made sure she identifies the portrait with Marion, he forces her to be the one who destroys it when she clearly doesn’t want to.  When she pleads to be put back in a safe place – the hospital – he refuses, telling her she will be happier at the house when it is patently not true.  I honestly wonder how this would have played in 1958. Did people back then honestly think a man knew what was good for his wife, particularly his mentally ill wife, more than she did herself?  Would they have seen Eric as merely overprotective instead of abusive, and been truly surprised by the reveal?  I have no idea but I hope not.

This abuser chooses as his victims people who are particularly defenseless.  Jenny has struggled with mental illness for years and has bought into the idea that being loved will cure her (Eric encourages this belief, even stating to Reverend Snow that she’ll be cured when she’s “really loved”), which leaves her incredibly vulnerable.  Eric’s chosen scapegoat, Mickey, has a disability that hampers his ability to communicate.  Eric describes him as having the ‘mind of a child,’ leading people to dismiss what Mickey says and to believe he will behave irrationally. Even if the truth comes out, Eric has every reason to be confident that people will believe the word of the able-bodied man over the disabled man or the mentally ill woman.

Eric’s behaviour and his status as unquestionable villain leaves me rather confused about one of the prominent motifs in the movie: that of The Beast in the Jungle, the story Mrs. Snow gives to Jenny.  It’s the tale of a man who only realizes he’s in love with a friend after she dies, and finds he has wasted his life.  The fact that they bother to give the story’s title and explain its plot suggests that it must be very important somehow.  I suppose we’re meant to see Eric as the hero of the story, who ignores the love of a woman and throws his life away for nothing.  But Eric is actively malicious towards the women in his life, while the protagonist of The Beast in the Jungle believes he’s cursed by a terrible fate and tries to protect his friend by not letting her get too close to him.  The two situations are not at all equivalent.

For all that, though, it’s possible to read The Screaming Skull as a feminist movie.  For the most part the movie infantilizes Jenny, treating her as somebody in need of comfort and care, yet she is also somebody who should be allowed to make her own decisions about the form that comfort and care take.  She wants a cure for her mental illness and learns that she cannot get it through the Power of Wuv.  Her tragic backstory and personal issues do not revolve around men, being rooted instead in her relationship with her mother.  Most interesting of all, Eric’s plot to get rid of Jenny involves turning her and Marion against each other – and it ultimately fails when Marion, from beyond the grave, refuses to let him!

Eric is Jenny’s only source of information about Marion. Mickey was close to her, but his handicap and his dislike of Eric keeps him from really talking to Jenny.  Eric tries in a dozen tiny ways to convince Jenny that Marion would have hated her, drawing on the fact that he already knows Jenny is prone to be jealous of other women.  All the information he gives her about Marion sets the dead woman up as a rival, right down to Mickey having liked her better and being expected to hate Jenny as a result.  But at the end of the story, Marion’s ghost arrives to speak for herself, and while she uses no actual words, her opinions are clear: she does not hate Jenny, she hates Eric, and she will not allow him to hurt his new wife.  This is a tale of women standing up for each other, even from beyond the grave!

On a practical level, unfortunately, Marion’s ghost is also where the movie falls apart.  The other characters have just discovered Eric’s deception and are discussing what to do about it, when the ghost appears in the form of a skeleton in a gown and hat and chases him across the estate before killing him!  In some movies this kind of supernatural denouement doesn’t work, being as much a deus ex machina as the dinosaur in The Beast of Hollow Mountain, but here it’s pretty satisfying.  Whether Eric actually murdered her or not (based on the information the movie gives us, we suspect this but cannot prove it), he has used Marion as a bogeyman, and she’s through with his bullshit and ready to take matters into her own spectral hands!   The problem is the ghost itself.  The skeleton in Marion’s clothes is ridiculous and the things that happen to it don’t help.

Take, for example, the moment when the skull clamps its jaws around Eric’s throat.  This looks so silly, especially when actor John Hudson is so obviously holding it there as he pretends to ‘struggle’ with it, that I laughed out loud.  My favourite part, though, is when Eric throws a chair at the ghost, and the fake skeleton goes flying apart.  Its arms were hanging from strings to keep them raised and when the prop falls apart they go sailing away in different directions!  It’s hilarious and it completely kills whatever mood of fear the movie has managed to generate.

And that’s not much, because the movie shoots itself in the foot right at the starting gate.  It opens with the infamous sequence in which the film-makers promise free burial to anybody who dies of fright while watching The Screaming Skull.  This is perhaps the ultimate example of telling the audience something you cannot show – they can’t show us a scary movie because all they’ve got is The Screaming Skull, so they tell us we’re about to see one.  The main effect of the bit, besides making the movie a couple of minutes longer, is to leave us extremely cynical.  What makes this movie think it can scare us literally to death?  As a result, we’re even less scared than what little scared we would have been anyway!

This one sucks.  It’s got some interesting subtext but that’s probably unintentional and the text is boring and predictable.  The Gumby short and Tom’s coffin delivery woes are far more interesting than anything in the feature presentation.  I fear we’re in for a succession of awful boring movies in the future because so far, when I’ve come upon a film I really don’t want to watch, I skip it and go on to something else.  Now I’m starting to run out of interesting movies.  It’s probably all downhill from here.

[roxannepolice]

Ur the only bitch in the house respect. Seriously though, I saw TLJ and liked better than Tfa because I appreciated it more because i like a bold fuck up more than a safe rehash. But then I saw it on netflix and I had the thought, 'does lf not want me to care about the resistance/rebels?' because if they didn't then quite frankly that's how you'd do it, all the 'failures' boil down to either wanting to kill the ppl viewed as space nazis to hard or being 'too compassionate' and even after (cont)

them being reduced to what? a a couple dozen? they’re all standing around chill like they just broke for a meeting break around a water cooler. meanwhile the big bad who’s gonna be that for at least im betting a third of the finale is on his knees crying. i know its supposed to be ‘crime never pays’ or whatever, but seriously, they’re down to a single ship, they’re potential allies said ‘lmao no’ and the biggest source of funding just got blown up. they’re gonna win and we know that but the /narrative doesn’t even pretend otherwise/. and i thought, oh god maybe it is as shit as everyone says. but then you gave me hope but I still have one remaining fly in soup so to speak. There’s gonna be a ST after the ST and we all know it. It may be 20 yrs or whatever but it’s coming. So how do you idk rationalize the idea of integrating the shadow of the empire with the need for there to be an enemy for the war of the warry stars? stormtroopers are ~iconique~ and it was always the biggest stumbling block I had to the stormtrooper revolution. Why would any company worth its stock swap out an instantly recognizable and marketable baddie for idk some other cgi alien army or whatever? love to hear ur thoughts and thanks.

Thanks, anon, those are some really great points! 

Yes, I am a bit frustrated with the way the good guys™ of this trilogy are depicted as - as a collective because obviously we felt for Paige Tico - virtually invincible, getting not one but two jedi ex machina to get them out of the problem. Maybe I should mention that while I use the ex machina term quite extensively, I don’t consider it a bad move by default - sometimes a lightning from a clear sky can have its dramatic beauty. What is frustrating is when a situation is clearly not hopeless yet the text insists it is only solvable by supernatural intervention, as, imo is the case with rock lifting Rey. TBH, when the resistance run into the rocks blocking their way, my first thoughts were huh, they can blast their way through, maybe a shot from MF will clear the way, or maybe we’ll get some teamwork scene where all the members will combine their forces to quickly deal with the problem. But no, we got Rey lifting rocks with the force and being amazed at herself lifting rocks and resistance also being amazed by her lifting rocks and Luke crying joyful tears at the thought of her lifting rocks - and in result the only character I actually felt for was the man who was faced with his holy murderous uncle basically praising the girl, to whom he offered a galaxy, for dumping him, as practically everyone else in his life did. This is some very human venom that gets spit in the I’ll destroy her and you and all of it line. 

But still, I insist the screenwriter who also came up with the You’re nothing but not to me line which is still being analyzed 8 months later and also manged to give a beautiful and satisfying end to the journey of one of cinema’s icons, isn’t oblivious of the contrast between those two scenes and bordering on emptiness lightness of the political subplot. Just imagine how much satisfying the rock lifting would have been if we have seen Rey simply fail at anything before this scene - for example, if before taking up the ls to train she wasn’t training with her staff only, exactly, trying to put rocks on top of each other - and failed and then picked up the ls in frustration. Then her “apotheosis” at the end would feel much more earned and it’s really basic rules of storytelling I point out, so it’s not a matter of Rian Johnson being Fellini and Antonioni and also my countryman Roman Polański all rolled into one only a good movie making craftsman that he is to figure this out. Of course, there is much symbolism and subext to this scene but again - the subtext and symbolism in the overall movie point out to an ending more complicated than gratuitous dragon slaying.

Ending the whining and turning to the actual question - what about future installments? Well, first of all it is very possible that next trilogies will be perhaps closer to usual action based movies, maybe not completely dropping the deeper psychoanalitical symbolism but also not operating on it like the Skywalker saga has been and should be so till the end. It very often seems to us that once we finish the psychoanlysis all our problems will disappear but that’s really not the case - it may be that they’re only about to commence. TBH, I was fully prepared for this trilogy to drop the jungian elements, since RotJ could technically be the end of individuation - Luke reconciled his father’s self and shadow, as well as understood his own shadow. So when tfa’s opening crawls informed me the new villains are actually old villains revamped I felt almost disappointed - only to be positively surprised by one of the stormtroopers turning out to be trilogy’s hero. Still, after tfa itself I was inclined to think creators were just too lazy to come up with something new and maybe are giving some commentary on neo-bad things springing up across the globe. But tlj and additional materials made me think that they really have something new to say about the conflict. Ex-imperials were exiled rather than reintegrated or even imprisoned, galactic history kept Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader seperate entities, finally Anakin’s denied shadow was directly complicit in his grandson’s fall - all that reeks of repression and the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Because Leia would, and as it turned out did, find it much harder to deal with her father’s memory than Luke, as it wasn’t he who was held still to watch his whole planet get blown up - and yet it was Leia who passed the Darth Anakin genes on, so obviosuly she would have to deal with her father someday.

Tell your sister you were right, the actual last words Anakin has ever spoken, take on a brand new meaning now, don’t they?

But  perhaps more importantly, as far as storytelling and marketing are concerned - the real question isn’t why should they drop iconic villains only how long can they actually keep up the same villains without them losing all dramatic value? Aside from the movies repeatedly employing storytelling devices to keep us unworried about the heroes, that’s the main reason why the political conflict in this trilogy is so emptily obvious, or at least, as I hope, seems emptily obvious. Now, of course, you never really expect villains to win in kids’ movies but a new villain is always someone that needs to be introduced, recognised, have his methods and motives exposed - and that iteself makes the story more interesting. A new villain is someone heroes need to learn, adjust to and this is what triggers their own inner journeys as well as tells the audience something new. Rebels and empires are basically angels and demons at this point and how may times can you watch white clad blondes with circles vanquish red-and-black clad brunets with horns as you know there’s no way it won’t end this way? Empires are Star Wars equivalents of Daleks and let’s face it it’s the Weeping Angels that scare us now, Daleks we just want to exterminate our sadness.

also dr Who bases on time travel so linear storytelling doesn’t apply

The only type of villain that can stay the same for who knows how many episodes is the mastermind with a secret organisation who always sneaks away - but no massive political-military organisation. And even they finally become their own parodies.

I should add, Solo very positively surprised me in this aspect - actually I would say it’s the Stories that keep me so optimistic about this trilogy, what with Galen Erso, Saw Guerrera and imperial officials from a Forman movie - with their depiction of crime syndicates. Dryden Vos isn’t your usual chaotic neutral criminal that’s still lesser evil than evil empire - it’s he who used up Enfys’s people resources of coaxium, yes, to sell them to the empire, but it was still he who was responsible. This really makes me think Disney-LF has some wider vision of the GFFA - and there are more potential for conflict there than just angels and demons RRR and Hugo Boss uniforms

And to wrap up, don’t forget our beloved turtle like helmets I can’t be the only one who always thought of turlte shells looking at stormtoopers? technically started as the good guys - so it’s possible we’ll keep their iconicness.

[aion-rsa]

The 100 Season 7 Episode 7 Review: The Queen’s Gambit

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This THE 100 review contains spoilers

The 100 Season 7 Episode 7

Lindsey Morgan (who plays Raven Rayes) directed a crackling episode of The 100 that treats us to a heaping pile of wonderful character moments and more mysteries than you can shake a stick at. Sheidheda continues to prove why he had a reputation as a master strategist and Emori comes into her own as a leader on Sanctum while Murphy struggles with the opposite impulse. Meanwhile, some of the most formidable women on the show found themselves imprisoned on Bardo, and Jackson helped Madi lay down her burden as Commander and simply be a kid.

Gabriel took a deal from Anders to join the Cypher Team rather quickly – so quickly that I’ve got to think his plan is to gather intel and play double agent. If he had stopped to consider it and searched his soul a bit, turning against his friends would be more believable. Anders’s offer of knowledge alone wouldn’t be too bad, though this isn’t Gabriel’s first war and he’s no dummy, so he would never believe it was just that. But the Clarke intel clearly gave him pause.

Time dilation allows the writers of The 100 to get even funkier with time than ever – remember The 100’s first major time jump at the end of season 4 into season 5? It was such a shock! We were so sweet and innocent back then. Now we time jump all the time! This episode’s use of dilation is judicious, allowing Gabriel three months to learn about the Anomaly Stones and hopefully all things Disciple, while some of The 100’s best warriors (minus Indra) train to become even deadlier.

Sadly we have to wait to see the new and improved fighting force of Hope, Diyoza, Octavia and Echo (even writing that makes my skin prick up), but this episode gave those four actresses plenty to work with, and they did not disappoint. Hope and Diyoza threw down emotionally and physically, with Diyoza getting Hope to realize that 15 years of training and a heart full of vengeance is nothing compared to her mother – but it’s also no way to live. Diyoza was far more frank than I expected both about her crimes and Hope’s biological father, considering how much she sheltered Hope when she was a kid. But it was also interesting to hear Hope discuss the positive part of her mother’s military record, saving thousands of people at the Battle of San Francisco.

These scenes were both a great action set piece and such a human exchange between mother and daughter, seamlessly bridging the gap between multiple actors portraying Hope over time. The exchange kicked into high gear when Hope referred to deceased Sky Ring prisoner Dev as her father. That’s a move that feels right for the beautiful relationship we watched, but it’s got to be a gut punch for Diyoza to hear that the man her now-25-year-old daughter considers her father is a person she has never met and never will.

Echo and Octavia finally buried the hatchet, or machete, as the case may be. This was clearly driven by Octavia and all the evolving she’s done in the last couple of seasons, both in the regular timeline and across time dilations. O made it clear that while Hope may have misgivings about Echo, she’s bringing her own loyalty to the equation. The warrior formerly known as SkaiRippa and Blodraina  has forgiven any and all transgressions, and sees Echo as family.

While that was a lovely surprise, and Marie Avgeropoulos and Tasya Teles did an excellent job, The 100 writers owed their actors more than cribbing the “it’s not your fault” forced hug from Good Will Hunting, even using those exact words. It was an earned moment and likely one that will make the next time we see them working alongside one another much more fluid, but that felt goofy, cheap, and possibly unintentional, rather than like an homage.

We finally see Bellamy again and it’s in a flashback – and one that feels like it’s a few years too late. Seeing Bellamy forgive Echo, her regret over her worst sins, Bellamy extending a place within the group, Echo’s hope for loyalty, and their first kiss, it’s everything that we sort of assumed happened on the ring during those five years – but never saw. While much of the hate Echo gets is based purely on shipping, this particular issue lies with the writing. When Echo came back a member of SpaceKru and in a relationship with Bellamy, it was the ultimate in telling rather than showing.

While I’m glad to finally see this pivotal scene, it feels like too little, too late. Always clear that there are no good guys, The 100 chooses its real heroes and villains not by any sense of morality but by whose perspective it assumes. Interiority is pivotal, but it’s something Echo almost never gets. We heard Echo was family, but the audience never saw it firsthand, so those five years of supposed relationship development and character evolution were hearsay at best.

Emori and Murphy’s dynamic become more pronounced this episode, in one of my favorite non-mysterious plots that’s moving right along at exactly the right pace. Emori is actually fantastic at being a fake Prime, using her now-extensive experience in bridging cultures and the studiousness we saw her apply to becoming a pilot to the task of bringing peace to Sanctum. Jackson’s new role as psychologist allowed him to make the subtext on Emori’s background into text, asking her about her motives. From a plot perspective, I understand why things had to go to hell, but seeing Emori try to bond with Nelson (and briefly find tentative success) was promising, so I look forward to watching that relationship develop.

Sheidheda’s evil plan for Nelson to ally with Nikki worked, thanks to old hatred dying hard, the delicate nature of Sanctum’s peace, and Sheidy ably detaining Murphy, who portrays the (apparently?) more credibly Daniel Prime. The chess match between Murphy and Sheidheda was a good little misdirect for what turned out to be his true plan, keeping Daniel from the Reunification Ceremony. It also laid groundwork for whatever confrontations they’ll have later when the Dark Commander inevitably tries to kill Emori and take over Sanctum.

While it might seem obvious that Murphy wouldn’t fold, he did exactly that last season, though it was so out of character for who he had become that fans kept waiting for a secret plan that never came, at least not until after Murphy had betrayed everyone several times over. All that is to say, let’s hope this season continues to be a more character-driven send-off for one of the show’s absolute best characters, rather than an unearned plot-driven regression.  

Finally, Clarke and friends landed on Bardo, only to learn the same devastating news that sent echo into a murderous rage: Gabriel tells them Bellamy is dead. The bond between the core group is so strong, but Clarke and Bellamy have been the leadership duo that lean on each other more than any other pair. With Abby and Kane gone and new kids coming onto the show, they’re now Space Mom and Space Dad. Eliza Taylor (playing Clarke) said it all with one look. While supposedly nothing breaks Clarke, this might be the closest she comes, especially so soon after burying her mother.

The episode leaves us with far more questions than answers. Where is our beloved and definitely-probably-we-hope-not-dead-Bellamy? How the heck did Second Dawn leader Bill Cadogen get here from Earth and survive this long? What do they want with Clarke and how do they know she’s the key? Who is this supposed war against? Where is Gaia? It says a lot about this season that we’re still deep in the exposition on our seventh episode, while simultaneously revisiting a character and group from way back in season 4. Onward!

Other notes…

Soccer exists in space! The game truly is…universal (OK I’ll show myself out!)

Shoutout to Lincoln!

Anders confirmed that Orlando hanged himself in the cabin, saying, “it appears we need to rethink our penal system.” How is this the first time someone took their own life on Penance?

Nikki with the very real talk: “Don’t kid yourself honey. There’s no innocent people at the end of the world.”

I believe this is the most Diyoza has ever spoken about her major act of terrorism. She apparently was actually trying to do a good thing. Wasn’t she from the same time as Second Dawn? Might that come up during the back-door pilot when we see Earth before it was destroyed (the first time)?

Murphy’s explanation of the flame keepers all banding together to kill Sheidheda and Lexa coming after to unite the clans makes it sound like they were one right after the other. But I feel like timeline-wise there should be another commander between them just due to Indra’s age…Am I forgetting my Grounder history here? Help me out folks!

What did Nelson’s parents originally name him Sachin as in…Sachin Sahel, the name of the actor who plays Jackson?

Apparently Azgeda warrior’s scar themselves before war to signify that the pain is over? I’m fuzzy on what that means and how Echo did this – what did she use? After Hope had a tube in her arm I thought Echo was going to dig a weapon out of her face.

Nikki somehow seems to know Russel is dead, plus there’s the notes in the food. It seems like ole Sheidy is working the crowd far more than what we/our friends are seeing.

The post The 100 Season 7 Episode 7 Review: The Queen’s Gambit appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[maxessence]

My destiel shipper heart exploded (the video if you're looking for it)

We've come a long LONG way

And so did Jensen to be honest

[silverloke]

#its not a subtext it's clear text is something i never expected to hear from jensen ackles #but I'm all for it

We've come a long LONG way

And so did Jensen to be honest