#which is a shame because cavendish would very much like to remember

[gmalaart]

21 to celebrate the newfound acquaintance between the good doctor and Ockham? (who's 5'7" probably)

A kiss to remember.

[pixie-mask]

So I was planning to make this post to just gush over how much I’ve fallen in love with Milo Murphy’s Law, but then I remembered that I’m not that good at writing coherent thoughts, so I apologize for this rambling mess if anyone reads this.

The Show Itself

So, yeah Milo Murphy’s Law. I remember hearing about this show last year and of course saw that amazing peach clip, but other than that I didn’t look much into it and just let it be. 

However on the one time youtube actually gave me a good recommendation and I ended up in a loop of MML clips. (namely clips of Dakota >.>)

In the end I’m so happy to have finally given the show a proper try because it is amazing. The animation is really nice and at various moments there’s these really amazing bits of really fluid animation for certain movements.

Also I tend to be kinda meh to iffy about shows where there’s songs involved especially continuous shows but the songs in MML are so enjoyable. They’re either catchy, funny or both and actually an enjoyable treats to listen to.

However all of this is even more enjoyable due how fantastic and the setting and characters are. 

I mean I’ve seen characters or similar things where a character/the protagonist has some sort of “affliction” that causes trouble for them routinely and the show typically focuses on the characters ups and downs, struggles to make friends, their hardship of being accepted and other things. So it was so nice to come into a show where Milo is just a walking chaos magnet but he’s already has friends, is well liked and no one is ostracizing him from the community or from activities. It’s like so nice to see a story where all of that is avoided to focus on what adventures and mishaps the characters can get in and out off. 

At the same time it’s nice to see that Murphy’s Law is understood with a healthy dose of realism (as far as cartoon can get) in this show. Milo understands Murphy’s Law can be a problem and doesn’t get offended when people want to be cautious around him and others aren’t all that jumpy around him. I mean they glance around their environment every now and then but they aren’t constantly panicking 24/7.

I also love that that there is a generation of Murphy’s. Like despite the curse like nature of Murphy’s Law the Murphy men have been able to find wives that dearly love them and carry on a family. I constantly think about it whenever I see Brigette and Martin or Milo and Amanda interact.

Speaking of interacting I love these characters. All of them are really enjoyable. Even characters that aren’t really set to be all that pleasant; Mr. Block, Elliot, Savannah, Brick, Bradley; I find to be really enjoyable. I like that Melissa is allowed to be this tough girl without the show trying to go frequently out of its way to mention how she isn’t girly, but then she’s also got fears that aren’t mocked and is a nerd who works on making sure her grades are always good and is just so sure of herself. I like how Zack is this ex-boy band member whose allowed to be on the cowardly side and more sensitive without being criticized and is willing to try to turn situations around and grow through his experiences with Milo.

The rest of the cast is golden as well. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a show where the school faculty was actually really fun to see and not overly stupid, neglectful or constantly angry. It’s nice to see that the school staff has actual personalities and are capable of getting along with their students. The other students are pretty fun to and really help round out the characters. Also the Murphy family is just so sweet. I love that Sara can be so geeky without being mocked, that both parents are successful but also very caring and supportive off their children and that they don’t let Murphy’s Law hinder them in being around one another. I’m not going to go into too much about them (running out of energy) but I have to give alot of props to Amanda’s character. While she’s set up to the be this tightly wound perfectionist its nice to see that she’s able to be silly and have fun and I was so thrilled that they didn’t try to make a long standing story thread about her being a perfectionist and Milo being being basically an embodiment of chaos get in the way of their relationship developing.

Even the more minor characters really fun. I genuinely enjoy Trucker Ted’s whole gag and get a little excited whenever I see a truck on the show. Seriously I regret getting into the show so late, but I’m glad I finally did.

My Favorite Characters

Since I’m running out of energy I’m just going to list my favs and bullet point why I like them.

Vinnie Dakota

His build/design

He’s so short, like what only a foot or so taller than Milo and co

He’s adorably chubby and yet light enough Cavendish (or Cav is just really strong) can easily lift him up or hold him

The fact that he’s just had the hair for his entire life just in varying sizes

And thanks to Cavendish we also know he’s got a decently squishy face apparently.

His Personality

Like he’s played mostly like a typical laid back guy but he’s surprisingly grounded. I seriously did not expect for him to point out Cavendish’s flaws and make some solid arguments given their season 2 predicament. Like how Cavendish needs to stop gunning for trying to save the world and how they can’t risk their jobs because they can’t time travel and fix things like they used to and they have to pay for rent

He’s also genuinely nice. I seriously love how him being nice made his disguise work for him during the second Pistachion take over and how that never came back to blow his cover.

Also despite how things are going he does try to make the best of things. 

Give this man his action moment.

I’m serious about that previous statement btw. He made a one liner, slid over the roof of a car, did a dramatic dive and tried to ram an airboat through a steel grate. Just give him his successful moment

He’s clearly being set up to be one of the more action oriented characters and overall he’s pretty good at it

Extra things

The fact that he’s a near bottomless pit when it comes to food

He was utterly adorable as a child

He loves animals and the zoo

And speaking of which I think it’s a shame that we haven’t seen Dakota eating animal crackers in this show

He’s an absolute angel of a best friend

Milo Murphy

His personality

I love that Milo is a sweetheart who understands peoples caution around him at time, but I love that it doesn’t stop with him being nice until he hits the usual dramatic breaking point

It’s nice to see that he can have a healthy level of sarcasm or frustration with both other’s and Murphy’s Law itself

It’s to see a character like this with a nice but also rounded personality instead of the whole nice until a breaking point or nice with no concept on how to be mean and when someone is being mean to them.

Murphy’s Law

Yeah Milo’s past and current events are hilarious. You can never tell how things out of control and as such it brings some fun when we get to see how they resolve themselves or what Milo will use to fix the problem.

Diogee

I don’t have much to say about Diogee.

He’s one of the (or the given my memory) cutest designed dogs that I have ever seen

I thought I would get sick of the “go home” gimmick but I ended up liking it

And his episodes are surprisingly fun

And yeah. Like I said I’m love this show but lack of coherent thoughts and running out of steam has made it difficult for me to continue writing more for this post.

[amoralto]

I've no doubt Mal had a lot of good qualities, but his tendency to try and take credit retroactively for so many Beatles ideas has to be taken with a big grain of salt. According to Doug Sulpy, it was John was started goofing around and singing "Brother Malcolm" and other goofy lyrics while going over the song in session the day before the excerpt you posted. Paul was just reference John's joke from the day before. (pt1)

I think Mal’s claim is particularly annoying because this is one of the few songs that holds such personal meaning for Paul due to its inspiration being his mother, and Mal essentially turns it into a joke. On the one hand, you have Mal’s story which conveniently has zero witnesses and nothing else to back it up. On the other hand, you have Paul’s consistent story of the song’s creation going back to 1968, the sessions tapes where he first presents the song to the band (p2)            

with the “mother Mary” lyric intact, and 50 years of Paul describing the same origin of the song and treating it as something deep and meaningful to him (including getting choked up at the lines referencing Mary and looking heavenward when seeing it performed at the Kennedy Center Honors). (p3)

See, I may sound naive or even partial to a certain extent, but I’ve never regarded Mal as self-serving or ill in intent when he relates this anecdote, or any other. Instead of an expression of conceit where he scrabbles for credit and influence, I read it as an ultimately innocent and ultimately affectionate account of a little moment he and Paul had one rainy night. (Bear in mind that in his very last interview, he unequivocally states that out of all the Beatles he was/is closest to Paul; and this is even after spending the majority of the Lost Weekend period with John or Ringo.) I don’t believe relating it as such was ever intended to cheapen or in any undermine the greater truth (which no one is in doubt of) that the song, at its heart, was evoking Mary’s spirit and memory. I don’t believe he would have presumed to have authority to speak of Mary or of Paul’s regard for Mary, anyway, and he didn’t. 

Mal, from the scant interviews he’d done in his brief lifetime, always came across as entirely too devoted and simple-minded to even consider making up stories exaggerating his own importance out of whole cloth for his sole personal gain. That doesn’t mean he didn’t have an ego, or that he didn’t feel slighted during the end days of the Beatles (he never made more than a menial salary,  and especially at that stormy contentious time felt more like an employee than a valued friend), but as far as the claims go he was never grandiose or keen about them. The relatively docile claims he made about the songs he’d written with Paul were probably meant (and were) along the lines of Ken Mansfield chipping in on ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’, or Pete Shotton providing an idea for ‘Eleanor Rigby’. Remember John recalling his hurt and jealousy over Paul’s tendency to throw songs out to anyone who was around for them to contribute to it? Mal was around Paul more often than most - he stayed with Paul in Cavendish at one point, went on holidays and overseas trips with Paul, even saw to Paul’s well-being after his first acid trip with John. Which was apparently not lost on John either; far be it for me to use 1971!John as a corroborative source, but he backs up the idea that Paul had, for example, set up the premise for the Magical Mystery Tour film with Mal (and confesses that he was “choked” by it, i.e. that Paul didn’t come to him, John, first.)

Anyway, back to ‘Let It Be’: Let’s give Mal the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s being honest. Mal noting that their exchange took place after a session in the middle of the night dates it rather certainly to the White Album sessions, when their day-to-day was erratically scheduled and would often start in the early evening and end well into the next morning, which aligns well with Paul’s accounts. Paul was suffocating in a veritable miasma of riotous emotion and reckless deed in 1968, between dealing with Yoko’s anvilicious presence and John’s maneuvering and not at all bothering to cover up with his affairs anymore from Jane Asher and sending chillingly passive-aggressive postcards to his associates and going all in on the drugs and alcohol and all the rest of it, and it’s altogether plausible to me that besides the dream(s) he would have of Mary’s reassurance and solace, he would have at least once had a similar dream of Mal, or John, whomever else his dreamscape had conjured up to tell him to hang in there. It is also altogether plausible to me that Paul would have withheld any talk of dreaming about Mary for it being entirely too personal, but told Mal about once dreaming about him - not as a faintly patronising gesture as one would feed scraps to a stray dog, but as a quiet and not too portentous communication of companionship after a long night.

As for Doug Sulpy’s interpretation of things, all he says in his book is that the group seems to have had little exposure to ‘Let It Be’ prior to the Get Back sessions, which is just inference on his part and is in no way explicitly stated in the session itself. (By the way, this occurs a couple of weeks before  the video I posted, on January 8th, so not a day before.) It’s entirely possible the band or any one of them had heard a sliver of ‘Let It Be’ before this, perhaps with both references to Mary and Mal, perhaps with the ‘Brother Malcolm’ lyrics as an offshoot or aside. 

Having heard the session recording in question, John doesn’t goof around or provide any of his absurd commentary for ‘Let It Be’ either. After Paul plays the song, and after another minute of absent guitar noodling, what he says is, “Change it to brother Fr– Malcolm and then we’ll do it. [inaudible] —would be great, brother Malcolm.” Which isn’t conclusive of anything, really - Sulpy’s assumption that this was the first time “Brother Malcolm” was ever brought up at any time of the Beatles’ tenure and that it was John who came up with it is a technically valid one, but so is the notion that John had perhaps heard an early sliver of the song in 1968 with a stray “Brother Malcolm” line and it had stayed at the back of his mind. It could also be entirely independent and coincidental, where Paul did have an offshoot ‘Brother Malcolm’ reference written back in 1968 and John just happened to come up with the same offshoot suggestion in 1969.

… I’m not sure how to end off, but I suppose at the end of the day, your guess as is good as mine. I just prefer to think better of Mal; he was far from being in possession of all the facts, but from his bijou and very particular frame of reference I like to believe he was being unadulterated and sincere. Whatever it is, Mal may not come up much in interviews (which isn’t any real indication of his importance to Paul; see also “there’s a vacuum where he used to be” Robert Fraser), but one only has to listen to, say, the commentary for Magical Mystery Tour to appreciate how fond Paul is of him.

Edit: In chatting with @thecutteralicia, she brought up another excellent possibility that for some reason hadn’t occurred to me, to my shame: the sheer fallibility of memory. The possibility of conflation and misremembering. I hope she doesn’t mind if borrow her words, which are better than what I could conceive:

Well, I think there’s also a middle ground, that Mal was not malicious but Mal was honestly confused or misremembering, i.e. he heard John joking when covering the song on January 8 (since Mal was there at those sessions) and it turned into a memory of, “oh, Paul did that!” then “He played it that way and therefore wrote the song for me!” Or even that Paul told him about the song and jokingly said something like, “And I said Brother Malcolm because you’re always there for us,” or something, and it turned into something else n his mind. (I’ve never gotten the sense that Mal had a good sense of knowing when the Fabs were kidding or taking the piss). Or Mal simply heard Paul in that session repeating John’s joke,maybe he didn’t hear John’s original joke, and misremembered it as “Paul and I were alone and Paul told me this song was written for me!”

[ba2astoryadaptation]

Chapter Summaries: 8-10

The Last Night

Poole goes to visit Utterson, he’s terrified and has been afraid for ‘about a week’. He neglects the drink given to him by Utterson and doesn’t look into Uttersons eyes. Poole claims “foul play” and wants to show Utterson. They head to Jekyll’s - “Wild, cold, seasonable night of march” “Pale moon lying on her back, as though the wind had tilted her “Most diphonous and lawny texture” “The wind made talking difficult and flecked the blood into the face” “bare of passengers” “Never in his life had he been concious of so sharp a wish to see and touch his fellow creatures” “Crushing anticipation of calamity” - all of this building tension and scene setting: pathetic fallacy. Arrive at Jekyll’s and meet the other servants. Utterson and Poole knock on Jekyll’s cabinet door - determine that the voice that calls out wasn’t Jekyll’s - they assume Jekyll has been murdered. Poole says Jekyll has been after medicine, communicating with Poole through notes, Utterson wants to check the handwriting. Poole says he’s seen someone in the cabinet - a man in a mask, who screeched at Poole. Poole describes the man as a “dwarf”. Poole and Utterson conclude that it was Hyde and go to get an axe, to break into the cabinet. Poole remarks pacing behind the door of the cabinet - saying it’s been constant pacing and weeping for a while. They break down the door “The blow shook the building” - taking five swings of the axe. Hyde screeches from within while they knock the door down. When they enter the room is fairly unremarkable - the kettle is on (whistling, ominous, tense) Hyde lays dead in the middle of the room “a self destroyer” - dressed in clothes of “the doctors bigness” - drank something “crushed phial.” Poole an Utterson search for Jekyll, find a broken key, find pious works annotated in Hyde’s hand - “startling blasphemies.”. They find a letter addressed to Utterson, another will, this time for in case Hyde disappears. Another note tells Jekyll to read Lanyons note - Utterson leaves to read the notes before talking to the police.

Dr Lanyons Narrative

This passage is from the perspective of Dr. Lanyon. He recieved a letter from Jekyll written on the 10th of December. It asks Lanyone to go to his house with a locksmith and break into his cabinet. He gives instructions to take phials, powders and a book to Cavendish square. He prefaces that with his appreciation for Lanyons friendship, despite their academic disagreements. Asks Lanyon to meet with a man who will introduce himself as Jekyll and to give that man the items requested. Jekyll states this is of upmost importance and that if he neglects the instructions he believes Lanyone will have “Seen the last of Henry Jekyll.” Lanyon follows the orders and retrieves the items, Lanyon meets the man mentioned in the letter, bringing a revolver with him just in case. He describes the man similarly to how Hyde has been described previously “small” “revolting” etc. dressed in clothes too big for him (Jekyll’s) and seems distressed “so lively was his impatience.”. Lanyone is curious about Hyde. Hyde seems unwell, retrieves the items and mixes together some of the ingredients “the mixture, which was at first of a reddish hue, began, in proportion as the crystals melted, to brighten in colour, to effervesce audibly, and to throw off small fumes of vapour.” Hyde asks Lanyon if he wants to watch him drink the concotion - “your sight shall be blasted by a prodigy to stagger the unbelief of satan” Hyde reminds Lanyone to adhere to professional voiws not to tell anyone. Begins to transform back to Jekyll - “He seemed to swell - his fae became suddenly black and the features seemed to melt and alter” Lanyon is traumatised - confirms man was Hyde to Utterson, dies from the absolute horror “I shall die incredulous” “my life is shaken to it’s roots.”

Henry Jekyll’s full statement of the case

Jekyll recounting the experience, says he’s born to wealth, endwoed with “excellent parts” (health)  his worst failt a “certain impatient gueity of disposition” “concealed my pleasures” “when I reached years of reflection...I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of me” “morbid sense of shame”. Jekyll felt in two parts “both sides of me were in dead earnest: I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame than when I laboured, in the eye of the day, at the futherance of knowledge.” “advanced infallibly in one direction” Jekyll talks of duality of man - that he strove to improve his decent side - “I was radically both” - says he isn’t really one or the other - but both the same. “The thought of the seperation of these elements” “If each could be housed in seperate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable” “It was the curse of mankind that these incongrous faggots were thus bound together - that in the agonised womb of conciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How then were they dissociated” - talks about creating poweders, attemptnig to seperate the two sides of men “even as a wind might toss the curtains of a pavillion’s” - he failed “managed to compound a drug by which these powers should be dethroned” - talks about making the drug and becoming Hyde “A grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death.” “Felt younger, lighter, happier” “tenfold more wicked” “sold a slave to my original evil” “the though in that moment, braced and delighted me like win”. Jekyll believes Hyde is smaller as he hasn’t ‘exercised’ that part of him very much. Believes Hyde is deformed because he is evil - but didn’t think him ugly, only as a part of himself (”a leap of welcome”). “because all human beings, as we meet them, are comingled out of good and evil; and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.” “The drug has no discriminating action...it but shook the doors of the prisonhouse of my disposition” “assume, like a thick cloak, that of Edward Hyde”. Jekyll talks about reverting back to himself, realises the potential of a second identity, about setting up Hyde’s second residence, writing the will and making him known to the servants. Jekyll talks about Hydes actions “undignified” “monstorous” “depravity” “malign and villainous” “drinking” “bestial” “torture” - Jekyll attempted to right some of Hyde’s wrongs. Talks of the incident with the little girl, spotting Enfield and setting up a seperate bank account of Hyde afterwards. Jekyll talks of waking up and being Hyde rather than himself. “Terror work up in my breast as sudden and startling as the crash of cymbals” “The body of Edward Hyde had grown in stature” “If this were more prolonged, the balance of my nature might be permanentll overthrown”. “The character of Edward Hyde become irrevocably mine.” “To cast my lot in with Jekyll, was to die those appetites which I had long secretly indulged.” “To cast it in with Hyde was to die to a thousand interest and aspirations, and become at a blow and foerever, despised and friendless.” “The terms of this debate are as old and commplace as man.” - Talks about being just Jekyll for two months, before giving in to Hyde once more. “My devil had long been caged, he came out roaring” “More unbridled, a maore furious propensity to ill”. “Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and raged” - murders carew, “I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from every blow” “My lust of evil gratified and stimulated” - Hyde runs, removing evidence from his Soho house, turns back to Jekyll terrified. “Jekyll was now my city of refuge” Tries to redeem himself “still cursed with duality of purpose” “the fall seemed natural”. - went to park as Jekyll, transformed into Hyde there, in daylight without medicine (reveal of true self) - Jekyll aware of himself as Hyde (as they are one) draws up plan to get his supplies through Lanyon. Hyde is fearing for his life/secret identity. Doesn’t remember 100% what happened with Lanyone - locks himself in cabinet - unable to control his transformations - needing drug to be Jekyll rather than needing it to be Hyde. “now seen to the full deformity of the creature that shared with him some of the phenomena of conciousness.” think Hyde “Not only hellish, but inorganic.” “the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries and voices; that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned, that what was dead and had no shape, should usurp the orifices of life”. Jekyll became weaker as Hyde gre stronger, eventually succumbing to Hyde and his letter is effectively as suciced note.