#so im trying to understand the path the writers and creators and directors want us to follow

[professorsta]

Fandoms are weird nowadays! It's like people watch a movie or show and instead of trying to understand the message the creator is wanting to send, or the idea meant to be conveyed, fans just criticize, co-opt, and refuse to acknowledge the writers vision and intent. Explaining how they would have done it or how better it would have been if it was written their way. Supernatural for example was a show ripe with criticisms, but it honestly would have done the fandom a disservice if, from the get go, we didn't like and didn't care to see where Eric Kripke was taking the story. The show was filled with rich plots and characters with very interesting questions about morality, family, sin, good and bad, but none of that would have been appreciated if the fandom wasn't able to look past the dead end arcs and throw away character in the first couple of seasons (which allowed the grey areas lacking in depth, helping in bringing about the fandom btw) and instead tried to "salvage" or "save" the story by completely rewriting the world and characters. Building theories and finding evidence to fill in the missing puzzle piece in your mind is essentially what the point of a fandom was. It was seeing canon and going, there's more there that the creators aren't aware of, and I want to delve into it. Its taking all of it, the subtext, context, characters, and psychology (even if it's not to your liking), and using that to further understand the stories point of view. Like loose pieces of thread being tied back together to make sense of the whole picture. It not "this shows narrative shouldn't have concluded like that!" gives no examples in canon as to why and doesn't have an argument to back it up. "Here's how it should be!" completely disregards canon and the message the creator was trying to send and instead replaces it with a completely different one. Now people watch movies and film and get upset when the characters don't act a certain way, not caring to read into context and maybe try and understand from the narratives point of view as to Why they would act like that. They see how flawed and vapid some scenes and episodes are and don't take it for the chance it is, which is to further the narrative yourself. Most fandoms are bred from shows and movies with the biggest plot holes, with a-lot of characters, and a wide range of different characterizations for each of them so just embrace it and embrace the flaws in our creations, because perfection just leads to dead ends.

[spotlightsaga]

Kevin Cage of @spotlightsaga reviews... Orange is the New Black (S05E4) Litchfield's Got Talent Airdate: June 9, 2017 @oitnb Ratings: @netflix original Score: 8/10 **********SPOILERS BELOW********** Litchfield's definitely got something... Im sure talent is in there somewhere, but as far direction is concerned, Nick Sandow who plays Joe Caputo is clearly new to the trade. Yes, this is his first stab at directing and he definitely has an eye for a 'Director's Perspective', but the episode does suffer in the 'cohesive flow' department. Josh Koenigsberg, Tara Hermann, and creator Jenji Kohan must have had a lot of fun in the writers room with this one, but I imagine this was a riot to just be on set for when it came to the actual talent show and insanity that followed. Sandow captures and settles on several vital emotional tones, and does find a good balance of heavy and light that OITNB has always honed in on so well... But it's the 'heavy' that I really want to tackle in this article. The heavy... Grief and Loss has been an ongoing subject I've tackled under the Spotlight Saga banner again and again. Grief straight up wrecked me... When I lost my Aunt (who was more like my sister due to environmental & situational factors), who I've mentioned many times through many different series, I lost my grip on reality. Seeing Taystee (Danielle Brooks) having such major difficulties processing her grief brings back a lot of emotional tidal waves for me. Even if this world is chaotic and completely meaningless, we have to find our home somewhere. It's so much more difficult to do that when someone who is so important in your life is literally ripped away from you... It's like ripping a massive bandage lined with duct tape off in a flash on a wound you never knew existed, that you never knew was bandaged. It leaves an inescapable void and we try to fill it with anything we can. In 'Litchfield's Got Talent', Suzanne (Uzo Aduba), Maureen (Emily Althaus), and Soso (Kimiko Glenn) have created a sacred alter of sorts using trays to block off the area where Poussey Washington (Samira Wiley) was killed by the undertrained, young, and very remorseful Baxter Bayley (Alan Aisenberg)... A very inexperienced and naive young man who was under the hostile orders of the tyrannical Piscatella (Brad William Henke). That whole situation with Baylee/Piscatella/Poussey will be covered later but for now, we simply use it help shape the rocky confines of where this grief stems from. Suzanne & Maureen convince Taystee and her friends to get in on a seance... One where Poussey will speak through Suzanne. Soso is eager to do anything to fill that void she can't escape, while Taystee is much more apprehensive. Taystee is a realist, but she has a great support system in friends like Janae (Vicky Jeudy), Cindy (Adrienne C. Moore), and Abdullah (Amanda Stephen) and they urge her to at least give this a shot. At this point Taystee is so 'capped & bottled' that anything is worth a whirl to hopefully crack her open and let everything she's holding on so tightly inside to breathe and fizz over. The whole experience backfires. Suzanne is earnest in her intentions, but Soso is almost too eager to believe that it sends Taystee over the edge. Here's where things get interesting. I had a couple of friends pass right around the time my Aunt departed this realm (death seems to come in 3's). All of them were completely unexpected but one in particular was extremely puzzling. It was one of 2/3 that were caused directly by suicide. It was a young man who was worldly, he talked about spiritual trips in India, his beliefs in reincarnation, he struggled with addiction and dependence... But he had, for the most part, overcome all the immediately difficult effects. His life was back in order and he was heading in the right direction. Sometimes people who were dependent on opiates are greatly affected by PAWS, Post Acute Withdrawal Symptoms... A Great Depression that lingers for as long as it wants to, depending on the person... Understand that person has no control on PAWS, and it's certainly not only in your mind. All of this isn't really the point, I just feel a great need to set the stage and pay homage to a great life lost. Weeks before his suicide by self strangulation, he had visited us and was in great spirits, hopeful, loving... It felt like he was really enjoying this newfound freedom from the heavy shackles of opiate dependence, eager to reconnect on a very intense platonic level. He was a good friend, he was such a special light... But one day that light turned out and he was unable to switch it back on. We were all in mourning. My partner had a particularly difficult time with his death, at the time I had been slammed with dealing with death after death and was almost numb to it. I bring this is up to show the juxtaposition of Soso and Taystee's grief and what it meant to them. Soso had not known Poussey for very long, but they spent every waking moment together once they connected, bonding on all sorts of levels. Taystee had known Poussey for ages. She was her best friend, and she had her own special bond with Poussey. No one bond is greater than the other but when dealing with grief, sometimes we a hit a moment where we are very angry. We may feel like certain people don't have the right to feel such a deep sorrow or intense heartbreak... Taystee doesn't know how to let other people have their grief, because in her mind, there was no one more special... And there was a romantic side to their relationship, but it largely remained platonic. Taystee loved Poussey, maybe even romantically, but she was unable to sort out societal norms and the wall we surround ourselves with labels, to feel the safety of belonging to a specific brand in life. There is safety in being 'straight' or 'gay' or 'whatever', but the truth is we are all sexual beings and whatever you identify as doesn't mean that someone can't come along and represent a love that you didn't know could exist inside of your world. My partner felt a bond with our fallen friend like Taystee had with Poussey and I think that's why this time, this death, was particularly difficult. We are in an open relationship, but on terms that are only ours and were a pain in the ass to define... Feeling out those parameters comes with a lot of hard work and trial & error. At the time we were living with a friend, one who had initially introduced us to our now departed friend, years before his tragic end. In a similar vein to Taystee, she had felt a need to repeatedly remind us that if it wasn't for her that we wouldn't even know him... Which, by the way, isn't even necessarily true considering life will happen as it does and eventually we bump into each other along the boardwalk of an all-interconnected path. I can't tell you what she was looking for exactly with those statements, only she can say. All I can say is that it's not a great look. The whole thing flashed before me watching Taystee react, it almost helped me understand why our roommate had said those comments that seemed so very egotistical and insensitive at the time. Like I said before, we all grieve in different ways... There's no right way to do it, and sometimes when the pain is so great, the rulebook of grieving and dealing with death goes out the window. Taystee must reconcile with the fact that Poussey is gone... The horrible truth as to why it happened... And she must accept that Poussey meant a lot of things to very many people, not just her. Hell, I don't even live in Litchfield Prison or that world and I literally cried out all the water in my body into several towels when that fateful, unjustly tragedy occurred... And I cried again here too. I believe this will still greatly affect me until Taystee is able to let Poussey go... And Soso too... Everyone really, as despite what everyone's 'demands' are, or how crazy it gets inside that prison with an Inmate forced 'Prison Guard Talent Show', who has the gun, or what the media thinks about two Skinheads in Hijab's crucifying their rich, white, cooking celebrity, Judy King (Blair Brown), on top of the prison roof... This was all made possible by the outrage of an oppressive series of living conditions, an almost totalitarian CO rule by the Dolphin Loving, Arabian Night Theming, Piscatella and his autocratic snowball effect that led to the senseless and brutal death of a woman who didn't deserve to die. Unfortunately, that's what happened, and there's no changing the past... Only how we handle the future.