#s4 critiques

[transmutationisms]

do you have any thoughts on people saying the writing isn't subtle enough / feels off for succession this season?

oh man... there are a lot of different critiques being rolled in together here so forgive me being a little broad. also, i'm focussing on what i'm hearing from, like, podcasters and episode recaps and reviews, because those things are coming from people who are actually trying to be public figures and i'm not interested in bitching about random tumblr users who are just on their personal blogs lol.

anyway, so, in terms of things that i've seen being criticised repeatedly. one is the dialogue; people feel it's too blunt or direct and sometimes hacky. i have some sympathy here; i didn't love, for example, the tomshiv dialogue in episodes 1 and 4. however, succession has always had some percentage of dialogue that's direct like this, or frankly just lacklustre. if every line was a snappy one-liner that would suck, actually. also, i don't think it's true that this style of more blunt dialogue is universally bad; episode 3 had a high percentage of it, because of the subject matter, and it received basically universal critical acclaim. i feel like i need to get to the end of the season before i can see how it all fits together.

another thing that i think people are right to perceive as a change is that logan's death, plus shiv and roman getting more development and screentime, means it feels more like an ensemble show now. i don't inherently dislike this, though i do think it has contributed to some pacing wobbles (like i thought the first halves of episodes 1 and 2 were weak points thus far). it's not an entirely new trend, though, and on balance i think it works okay because this season really demands that sort of equal focus on all three sibs after logan's death. (rip connor)

then there's the fact that like .... frankly .... most, uh, mainstream anglo journalists are some flavour of corny liberal and i just don't think they understand what's being done politically in this season or how it's continuous with prior seasons lol. like, in many ways the cruises storyline (which i love, dgmw) was easier for them to parse because they could just read it as "the corporate world does misogyny and that's bad." which is like, true, but it doesn't really engage with the commentary on masculinity on any deeper level, or fascist homoerotics, or how media conglomerates create and profit from the spectacularisation of politics and everyday life and why that's fascistic. like if i were to put this bluntly, it surprised me how many people were surprised by 3x06 and i think journalists who didn't see that coming or thought it was thematically discordant are just not people who have anything interesting to say about this show lol. so like, yeah of course they're not tracking the body politics and arguments about degeneracy theory and capitalist eugenics that animate the entire show and especially season 4.

i certainly don't think the show is beyond reproach, and i have some nitpicks and complaints and criticisms, including of this season. i also can't yet pass judgment on the ending obviously, and reserve the right to hate it if necessary. but in general i like season 4, i think it's good television, and i don't think it's discontinuous with what this show has always been. and honestly, in a year, when the dust has settled and people are able to consider the entire season as one coherent piece, i would not be surprised if the critical response is markedly different and probably marked by a certain degree of nostalgia that we're simply not seeing right now because these episodes are hours old.

[ambrosia-ghostie]

ok, so one more thing:

they butchered what i think they were attempting with the ending. adaptations of greek myths like hadestown, epic narratives like lord of the rings, etc. understand the art of storytelling in itself. they conclude with tragedy, but remind the audience that the story will live on and will continue to be told whether it be through written texts within the world of the story, adaptations/retellings, or - on a grander scale - as an imprint on popular culture. "...the great stories, mr. frodo, the ones that really mattered." we tell these stories and we learn to love and to grieve and to forgive. we return to them - even though we know they will end the same way each time - because they are stories worth telling and the characters are worthy of being remembered.

but if you erase the story and the characters from ever existing - while mischaracterizing them along the way, mind you - it doesn't work. it just doesn't. for me, that's why the umbrella academy ending is so upsetting. they erased the lessons, the love, the legacy.

[mrfleshwizard]

If you ever catch me writing like vivziepop or like writers of tua s4 shot me on sight. I'm serious. Don't even think about it, just do it. Death would be better fate than this.

[geek-and-nerd-are-not-the-same]

Spoilers spoilers spoilers! Do not read if you haven’t finished the umbrella academy!

you know what really pissed me off about S4? Not that fucking ending which was fucking STUPID!!!!! (Yes, I’m pissed.) Or what about the fact that Luther (& the director!!) made a big fucking deal about how Sloane was missing and he was going to find her only for there to be no fucking follow through!! And don’t even get me STARTED on that whole strawberries affair all of a sudden like 2/3rds of the way in!!!

Allison made a big fucking stink about wanting her daughter AND 60’s husband, and he literally ran out on her????? Like high five Klaus for stepping up and being dad of the year, but my god! All of their lives were upheaved and ruined (granted, I know, they at least were ALIVE!

but point remains…)

wtf was the point of S3’s ending and everything they were hinting at if S4’s ending is what we were going to get?

[glitterdustcyclops]

i feel like the only person who actually liked the bear season 3

liiike i know that's not true, that the negative stuff is what gets the most attention and "perfect show SUCKS NOW" is a more compelling narrative so of course news outlets would push that for clicks but still

i do agree that it maybe lost some of the magic of season 2, but i also think this season had some truly great moments as well. the first episode is a masterwork in purely visual storytelling, i love the way it uses the language of cinema to show someone who has fallen into a dissociative state and is kind of just zombie walking through their life after experiencing a pretty major trauma

also also, this might be my hottest take, but i actually don't hate claire at all? (and extra hot take, from what i can tell most of the people who are loudly anti-claire are sydcarmy truthers and those people are fucking obnoxious so i don't actually care what they think)

anyway, debra + sugar's ep absolutely destroyed me, tina's ep was EVERYTHING, my one biggest critique is there were not nearly enough Marcus Moments™️ and i actually cannot wait to see where we go next

[raayllum]

cannot fucking imagine applying a “the customer is always right” capitalist hellscape mindset to “the audience is always right” when audiences are as varied as anything else. just say you’re a boot licker to your own sense of edgy superiority amplified by your lack of media literacy and the fact your ‘hot takes’ don’t get traction and go. 

[secretsofthewilde]

Sexual intimacy in seasons 1-3 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer - continued

@girl4music asked me to write a section on Willow, so here is my very quick initial look into Willow's relationship with sexual intimacy in the first three seasons of Buffy. okay wow this ended up much longer than intended

The original post with my points briefly covering Buffy, Faith, and Cordelia is here (x).

Willow Rosenburg

As I touched upon in my actual essay, I think that the introduction of Tara marks a difference in how gender norms come into play in the depictions of sexual intimacy in the show. For this section, as with the others, I am going to be sticking to the first three and how they depict Willow's relationships.

When first introduced to Willow she is a shy and often meek character, who we know has a heart of gold and are supposed to sympathetic towards. Comparatively to Buffy and Cordelia, Willow could be seen as the true "good girl" of the Scooby for the most part. While she attempts to emulate Buffy's confidence or more risk taking tendencies, when it comes to her role in relationships in the first two seasons she still defaults to gendered stereotypes for the most part.

Upon the very first episode of the show we are introduced to her as having an unrequited and rather hopeless crush on Xander. Despite the fact that it's puppy love she feels for him, we are meant to still view her love for him as pure and good. When Buffy urges her to try seize the day in those first episodes, she then decides to go against her heart and goes out with a boy she just met at the Bronze, who is then of course revealed to be a vampire. This first attempt of Willow's to seek an intimate relationship is one she is punished for (though it may not stick out to us, it is an important moment for her), because it doesn't have the emotional connection that the show requires of it's female characters to have.

I'm not going to get into Moloch (the demon that possesses a computer) too much, but I will just quickly say I think that an argument could be made that the relationship between them was punishing Willow for attempting to form a relationship with someone through means that went against the norm for teenage girls at the time. Obviously the key theme of that episode is a sort of 'Online Stranger Danger' but at the same time it's interesting that Willow's key strength (the supposedly feminist aspect of her early character) lies in her computer skills in these early seasons, but she is unable to use those skills in order to establish an intimate relationship.

Her relationship with Oz is arguably presented as the most healthy of the Scoobys' relationships at this time. He respects her and routinely informs her that he doesn't want her to feel the need to change herself or present a certain way in order for him to remain interested in her. His more mellow personality and constant praise towards Willow often makes us forget the dominating traits he has in the relationship - i.e. his age, experience, and the fact that he is a werewolf. I also think it's interesting to note that due to his werewolf status that we see her falling into a more submissive feminine lover role; she is a beauty who loves the beast and believes that the power of her love is strong enough to perhaps tame him one day. When she does initially attempt to initiate sex into their relationship, Oz rebuffs it, suggesting that they take their time with introducing sexual intimacy, as he believes she is primarily initiating it out of her personal insecurity at her lack of experience. He primarily makes the decisions in how they move forward in their relationship, but because we know that Willow is intellectually superior to many of her peers and Oz presents himself as not at all domineering, we don't question whether it's right for him to speak for her as to whether she really feels ready to have sex yet. 

When it comes to Willow and Xander cheating on their respective partners for one another... I'm not going to rewatch that story line just for this post, so this will be based off of my memory (about a year a two since I've last rewatched). While we are made to understand that Xander and Willow are both in the wrong for their emotional affair, the show does constantly remind us that Willow has held love for Xander for several years and in doing so it tries to make us more sympathetic towards her actions. While Willow is (from my memory at least) the one who initiates and pushes them to continue their behavior, she is the one the show expects us to be forgiving towards. This brief dominance she displays with Xander breaks her usual passiveness and in doing so also appears to be playing against gender roles in their relationship. However, when the pair are caught kissing by their respective partners they quickly revert to their expected roles; Willow becomes a passive and submissive partner to Oz again, wracked by the guilt of her actions and wanting to repent. While she isn't granted instant forgiveness by Oz, it's relatively quick that the two resolve their conflict and go back to being the Scooby's representation of a "good relationship". It is very interesting to note that the show forgives Willow for her cheating behavior, whereas it could be argued that Cordelia is punished for not forgiving Xander for his behavior. This reinforces the idea that Willow is supposed to be a passive participant in her relationship, as we see Cordelia, who refuses to do so, gets exiled from the Scooby gang and narratively punished.  

The first time that Willow has sex in the show is with Oz and it's one of the rare times we see sexual intimacy being portrayed as both loving and without punishment for the women during these early seasons. As Buffy and Angel's first time was presented as being a reflection of their love, so too is Willow and Oz's. One could argue that the show even rewards Willow for returning to Oz and submitting herself to him sexually. At the end of season three their relationship, the one which appears to fit gender roles, is the only one that remains. From this we can see that though Willow attempts to contest gender roles through the same strengths that grant her position in the Scooby gang, when it comes to relationships and intimacy she is often pushed into the role of being the token "good girl" of the group; even when she does navigate contesting this role, such as in the case of cheating with Xander or expressing the desire for sex casually, we will see her revert back into a more submissive characterization afterwards.  

To draw this all back to my original post; the female characters are able to challenge gender roles in many ways in the first three seasons, however this isn't extended to sex. Willow is allowed to desire sex and even enjoy it, however it is on the provision that she fulfills certain heteronormative conventions, or is at least perceived to do so during these times.

[poebrey]

still a bit annoyed that disco’s final season unintentionally focused on someone else’s return to the captains chair after taking three whole seasons to make Michael captain, an entire season after Saru, and only after he stepped down

[dont-offend-the-bees]

This may be an unpopular opinion but I GENUINELY really miss the vibe of Umbrella Academy season 1. It was so fucking emo and that just felt Right.

[blue-bec]

Excuse me while I get all pedantic on this, but the ending of The Van Gogh Job (Leverage S4:4) really annoys me. Background, I have a Graduate Diploma in Museum Studies (which I studied because I was bored) and so I have spent time looking at repatriation of objects and artworks.

See my essay here for starters:

https://blogs.bluebec.com/essay-it-belong-to-them-lets-give-it-back/

Plot synopsis is:

On the trail of a lost Van Gogh, the team learns the painting was the center of a World War II love story between a black soldier and the white heiress he was forced to leave behind.

So the painting is found and Nate suggests to Charlie Lawson that he consider donating it to the Boston Museum (we won't delve into that one too much)... and just fucking no.

The art was looted by a Nazi (sure he saved it from a fire in a gallery/museum/safe-location for the collection of the (now) Kulturhistorisches Museum Magdeburg). The art has an owner. Charlie Lawson is not the owner of the artwork and it should be returned to the Kulturhistorisches Museum Magdeburg.

Sure it sucks, but the US Government has been instrumental in leading conventions and practices to ensure that looted art is returned, even when they suffer economic loss from it. The Boston Museum, or any other US Museum/Gallery who this artwork might be donated to would ask how it came into Charlie Lawson's possession and then would flatly refuse to accept the donation unless it was to return it to Germany.

The only way it would make sense for Charlie would be to sell it to a private bidder, and so the team have effectively left him in the same dangerous position. He has his art, and he can either have it stolen from him by someone with more power, return it to Germany, or illegally sell it.

So yeah, I loved the episode, but hated the ending because just no. Nate would know all this too. He's an insurance investigator, which as we know includes a lot of art knowledge by him. He would never have recommended donating it. The rest of the team would have offered to fence it for Charlie Lawson.

Return the art to the rightful owner or sell it on the black market.

[transmutationisms]

i agree that a lot of the critiques of s4 are baseless, but i haven't seen a lot of people acting like stuff is coming out of nowhere. like the consistency of themes doesn't seem to be the issue. i guess it's that the dialogue feels a lot less nuanced and you can make arguments either way for that. the thing for me is it doesn't feel like we're covering new ground. everything they're telling us we already knew. i am biased bc s2 was my favorite (which seems to be a common sentiment) but it feels like s3 onwards has just been reiterating points we already knew without building upon them that meaningfully. the decline of empire stuff has come into play a bit more in s3 and s4 which i like and they built towards it really well, but character wise i don't feel like we've learned anything that valuable in the past 1.5 seasons?

i disagree with that. kendall spends season 3 trying to play knights on horseback, leading to him finally offloading his guilt about the waiter to his siblings, leading to season 4 where he seems to have lost that shred of humanity that made him feel guilty over it; i think that's pretty important information to learn about him. roman went from proposing business-marriage to his father (season 2) to deluding himself into thinking he could just playact as the chosen son (season 3) to actually gaining the corporate position he wanted and going insane over it. shiv is working out an actual viable way for her to survive in this world beyond "go through dad," and everything between her and tom this season is new ground. even connor has had some critical beats in very little screentime (the wedding convo with willa, buying logan's apartment, etc). i acknowledge greg has been foundering for a while and im sorry to greggirls for your loss but frankly i personally never really cared about him the way i do the siblings.

also, i can't really read the political storylines and the psychological explorations as being separate from one another. like, roman and mencken is political commentary, but also a really important psychological beat for roman. same with shiv and matsson; same with kendall and his new tech infatuation; same with connor and the developments in his presidential run. if the political commentary is accomplishing something, it's because the character writing is accomplishing something, and vice versa. to me this sort of political-psychological monism has always been what makes succession tick, both in these storylines and in the broader way the show situates familial abuse as a function of the larger capitalist social matrix.

in general i guess i would question what type of character development we expect from a show whose psychological premise is that people don't fundamentally change. to me this was what made an episode like 'honeymoon states' so brutally effective: it's a reset in many ways, only with the centre of the universe gone forever, and the remaining characters finding new ways to make many of the same old mistakes. i think this does convey new information about the characters, and i think that sense of cyclical psychological claustrophobia is very much on purpose. you might still think it's executed poorly, or you might just dislike it as a narrative engine for a tv show—fair, i'm not going to try to talk you out of that. but i disagree that this season hasn't told us anything important, either about the characters or the political realm they operate in.

like i said, i do have more sympathy for dialogue critiques and i won't pretend none of the convos in season 4 have been clunky. i also do have some issues with season 3 (misuse or underuse of guest stars and secondary characters, a few episodes i don't think go anywhere, etc). personally though, i think season 4 has been stronger and tighter overall so far.

[rqg179]

see the thing about the penumbra podcast is that when it's good it's really good. but also sometimes it is not very good at all, and the 'not very good at all' moments tend to outweigh the 'really very good and will stick with me forever' moments

[mrfleshwizard]

Three different characters from three different shows who have nothing in common exepct the fact they got fuck over by the writers but I still love them:

[scintillatingshortgirl19]

so . . . my ultimate verdict on the timeskip? Still not a fan. It was interesting but I don't think it was the best direction the show could've gone. I would've preferred that we stayed with the characters we've known all these years in their current storyline, and explored various facets of them within that framework. I'm torn because they really did do fascinating things in the back half of s4 and the time jump did allow them to explore things they wouldn't have been able to get into without it . . . but in the same way they could've not done a time jump and explored other things that imo would've been more interesting.

[chainofclovers]

sex education s4

Anyway so finally finished the entire series...

Sex Education is such a fascinating show and I really genuinely enjoy a lot about it and I think nearly all of the actors are VERY talented which makes it a joy to watch but also I struggle with the dialogue-writing so much. I feel like the ethos of the show is to try to capture the ways humans make mistakes and try hard and screw up and find and re-find each other (which is a very, you know, human and relatable thing), all within this hyper-stylized world that contains all the same problems of our world but also contains a deeply engrained emotional intelligence that informs nearly every conversation?!

So you've got all the normal fuck-ups of life and also all the honoring of emotional journeys, and somehow the way the emotional journey piece of it is written actually makes the sex and relationship mistakes feel more shocking?! It's like we rarely get to settle into those intimate scenes between people for long enough to really feel repercussions. And instead we keep having to pause so some character can say the most basic thing. I don't think this is an actual line in the show, but it feels like half the stuff that comes out of people's heads is basically "Relationships can be intense and that's why relationships are so hard."

And I think Jean Milburn's bad radio show is kind of a way to poke fun at the very unnuanced therapy speak of it all, but maybe not?!

The show is WONDERFUL when the dialogue is specific and weird. Like when Adam and Eric reunite at the funeral and Adam's like "I work with horses now." What a line! Perfection. But those moments were far too few and far between for me.

I do like that the show makes it clear that as much as you might try to craft a safe, thoughtful, emotionally careful world for yourself, that doesn't mean life isn't hard. Cal's dysphoria and sense that the world doesn't want them is incredibly real and well done. And I thought Eric, Viv, and Jackson all had important moments of connection that transcended the dialogue and felt real, too.

I struggled a lot with Michael's storyline. I was actually interested in him and Maureen realizing that the work they've done as individuals makes them more appealing to each other, and I liked that they ended up exploring that and will likely end up getting back together. But! Michael's rebound with that teacher was never going to be what he needed, but I hated the way that lesson was taught. Sure, maybe he was always going to return to the familiar-but-new of his wife and family unit. But I HATE that the sex scenes on the show are often centered entirely around a specific moment of performance/pressure/penetration (literal or emotional) at the expense of what a human body might actually need. There's something in the middle of the spectrum of being humiliated for losing your erection during casual sex and returning to your wife. That middle point is sex--even casual sex--with someone who's willing to connect emotionally, to compliment, to experiment with foreplay, to kiss and touch and make it feel safe to have sex. I don't believe a show has a responsibility to depict that, but in this specific case it felt bad to watch a character so deeply need something other than he was getting and for the "lesson" to feel skewed a few degrees away from where I felt the real lesson actually was.

And let's be real, a large reason I've stuck with this show is because of how much I love Hannah Waddingham, and I found Jackson's storylines with his mums a bit strange precisely because of the surface level pseudo-deep emotional dialogue they're all forced to work with. At this point I've watched many, many hours of Hannah Waddingham working. She's so good. And you've got Hannah Waddingham, Sharon Duncan-Brewter, and Kedar Williams-Sterling, three phenomenal actors, in a room together, and it felt like an opportunity to go into exactly WHY they hid the real story of Jackson's conception from him, and why they went to such lengths to create the handmade picture book (adorable, but in hindsight so strange). All of these actors are more than capable of really getting into it re: deep desires for a particular type of family, and the haunting of the past, queerness, how Roz felt as the biological parent who wanted to give Sofia a certain type of family, how Sofia felt as the new partner starting a relationship with a pregnant woman, etc. There was no need to rely on a letter nonsensically kept in a bedside table, or surface-level platitudes.

Over and over, I feel like they created such fantastic scenarios, and cast such wonderful people to act them, but then the actual words spoken in conversation didn't ring true. And the juxtaposition of the frantic snapshots of sex (which do paint an empathetic portrait of desire and how lonely desire can be) with the tedious dialogue just didn't do it for me this time around. I'm all for some heightened utopian fantasy coupled with the painful reality that even when people love you, identity and self-determination are struggles. They just didn't quite make it there. But the actors really are so good that I enjoyed it anyway. Mostly. Often.

[raayllum]

Soren is amazing at misinterpreting social cues (usually disinterest for support or genuineness), which we see in his relationships with both Viren and Rayla. He’s also shown to, in spite of some of his best efforts, be good at identifying his own emotions and less adept at talking people through theirs. [...] Overall, I feel like Soren and Rayla aren’t intellectually or emotionally compatible. I think Soren would be too inclined to let her off the hook and not push her to be more emotionally open. And while Soren isn’t stupid by any means, I think Rayla would easily be able to talk circles around him, leading to frustration for both of them. 

from “Friends and Foils: Why I Don’t Fully Ship Sorayla” 

Cue Soren at least trying to get Rayla to open, but being taken aback when she’s prickly and curt with him and flat out shuts him down. Like Callum, he pushes, but unlike Callum, Soren doesn’t push Rayla about her own feelings. He instead, understandably, focuses on Callum’s. That’s what he’s been witnessing for the past two years and Callum is someone he’s understandably far closer to, but Rayla knows she hurt Callum; she said it even when he refused to: “Callum, I know my leaving hurt you.” “Maybe.” 

But it still doesn’t help Rayla open up (and indeed she largely doesn’t, this season, which is why I think her breakdown in 4x09 is so incredibly hard hitting). I loved this scene for getting to see Soren doing his best and sharing his wisdom, as well as confirming what I already thought:

Soren’s wisdom and way of wording things may work for some people, but they don’t work for Rayla, and I think it just highlights why Callum in particular works for her so well as a life partner.