#you don’t need to create the most thinly veiled attempt at drama around them it doesn’t work it doesn’t make it better to watch I just wanna

[jemmo]

watching this last episode i'm just...... why SH.... why call SW?!!?!?? My poor JS's face when he didn't get a voicemail. Like i'm glad they were happy in the end but damn... my feelings...

anon cont: piggybacking off that... why do i feel like if SW had left a voicemail for SH then SH might have had a more difficult time choosing JS? Like I totally believe JS and SH were supposed to be together and really do like each other ... but the part of me that studied psychology at college tells me there's a part of SH that may have very well had chosen SW from the beginning if SW was just a little bit clearer with his intentions...!!

there’s two different things at play here anon, and I think you’re right in saying that if seonwoo had been clearer with his feelings earlier, i don’t want to go as far to say they would’ve ended up together bc sungho’s feelings for junsung are still there and junsung would still pursue him even if seonwoo had been more forward, but I think it would’ve been harder, or seonwoo would’ve been a stronger pull, but I don’t wanna say they would’ve ended up together first of all bc I adore 2sung so much, but also for reasons that I’ve ranted about way too many times, I don’t think sungho and seonwoo would’ve been right for each other. that line he wrote in his letter about waking up and seeing sungho up early that first day and feeling like he saw someone similar to him sticks out to me bc I do think they have some similarities, it’s almost like, and I say this for everyone seonwoo connects with, sungho is someone sungho wishes he could be, be it his bravery or how carefree he is or whatever, and I think seeing their similarities makes him more wistful for that. and I do think there’s attraction and connection but I don’t think that manifesting into a relationship would’ve ever been the best way for it to go for them. and I stick by believing seonwoo needing someone that can keep him more in check and call him out and while I think sungho has some elements of that, I think seonwoo looks at him as younger and cuter and their relationship would fall into that imbalance. sungho needs someone who dotes on him but also is on a level with him, and I don’t think seonwoo should be the older, in charge person he thinks he needs to be.

and while it confused me for a second that sungho didn’t call junsung, I chalk this more up to the show itself, bc junsung and sungho becoming established before the end, in their eyes, isn’t fun tv, bc now they can’t continue that storyline, and I feel like, whether told to or not, sungho knew that calling junsung was obvious and so he didn’t do it. maybe he did just want to show seonwoo how grateful he was, idk, but I see it more as a last ditch effort to stir up some anticipation. but sungho didn’t have to call junsung for me to know he would pick him, I mean come on it’s so damn obvious, and I also quite like it bc it stays true to this thing that I’ve liked about them where their relationship began and grew and almost thrived outside of the show’s rules and premise. they never really needed a phone call or voicemail to communicate their feelings bc they just did it themselves, it’s like they never felt the need to stick to these displays of affection the show put in place and I kind of love that. it shows that no matter what, when two people like each other, there’s really no framework that their feelings need to be put in or conveyed through, it’ll kinda just happen. and plus it gives them another reason to playfully banter which is just adorable.

[angelmichelangelo]

idk if this is discourse or something you dont want to get into but are garrett and shane still friends??

short answer: 99% sure they’re not. and i’m saying 99% because i obviously can’t be entirely sure because. i don’t know these people irl lol but in my head im like 100% sure they’re definitely not on speaking terms right now, and haven’t been in a loooong while.

long answer? and boy, it’s a long answer: i think garrett removed himself from shane’s circle (with the exception of andrew ofc) long before the drama kicked off. i don’t really recall because i didn’t watch them at the time but i do remember seeing garrett kinda.. disappear from videos around the whole j* era .

i think garrett made a choice when he thought about who he was hanging around with and whether he needed those people in his life. considering andrew was working for shane at the time still, i imagine it would have been hard? i guess? to just be like “yeah i don’t wanna hang out anymore except you andrew but you’re here like most days anyway”

which obviously in the end when needed, andrew took off too and both garrett and andrew created their own empire without shane lmao.

looking back, i don’t think shane even liked garrett that much. as much of an “empath” that he says he is (it gives me such bad second hand embarrassment to even write that lol) he really didn’t give a fuck about garrett. and people would and probably still do, argue that that’s just their level of friendship! lightly bullying your friend but knowing the bondries as to not ever really hurt their feelings.

but shane always pushed that boundary. he was downright cruel to garrett in some instances. and it’s not just the “harry potter is lame” jokes that garrett actually mentioned kinda suck, which they do! but garrett was treated like the comic relief in the group, because in shane’s little bubble he wanted everyone to be what he wanted to be.

you had shane: the hero of the story.

ryland: the sassy back talking witty one (though ryland has the personality and the wit of a broom so that didn’t really work did it)

andrew: the sweet, middle ground, quiet one.

morgan: the clutz thats hastag relatable

and then you have: garrett. the idiot fool who bumbles around, making a scene wherever he goes and is practically babysat by everyone else.

one thing that fucking IRKS me about this is that if you watch garrett’s videos, you know he’s goofy, funny, an insanely fun person. but he’s far from being an idiot. shane couldn’t have someone else besides himself (in his own mind) being funny AND clever (again, in his own mind) so he belittled him and acted like he was a burden to have to lumber around all the time, rather than just a silly, goofy friend that would joke around a lot.

one part of a video was when they were at an airport (i think they were going to Texas) and andrew and garrett are goofing off as they put benjamin in the bag and ryland literally goes “we’re all waiting, garrett,” with this.. snarky, shameful tone. AS IF THEY HAVENT ALL EMBARRESED EACH OTHER IN PUBLIC BEFORE like UGH the whole fucking bunny video makes my blood boil i can’t even get into it it makes me too mad lmao.

so i think garrett definitely decided at some point that he didn’t want to take that kind of abuse anymore, and i definitely think andrew saw it as well - because andrew and garrett were friends way before shane came along, so to me, i feel like andrews priorities always were always with garrett, and if garrett were to leave, i think andrew knew he’d leave to, job or no job, he cared more about his friends than money and fame (looking at you shane ryland and morgan)

shane doesn’t care about his friends or his “loved ones” or any of the people around him. he cares about money and fame and numbers and attention, even if it’s the negative kind. he’d joke that he KNEW he was treating garrett like shit and he’d use that as fuel to keep going, because he knew it drew more people in. plus, i feel like shane knew how popular garrett was getting. his channel exploded and he started making videos and people LOVED him. rightly so lol. nearly half the comments were about garrett; something he said and did, and rather than be excited for his “friend” shane took his anger out on him, almost, and again this is just my opinion, but in a way.. to control garrett.

i think it’s only human to think certain things, and i wonder if garrett had any worries that all his growing success and attention was because of shane and not because of himself. i wonder if maybe, deep down, he had some kind of fear that if he left, his subs would leave too. but obviously, he took the plunge, and everyone stayed and shane’s channel went up in flames lmao

garrett is one of those youtubers i think is very genuine. whilst everyone wears a certain mask online, which is fine, i feel like garrett’s is very thinly veiled. what you see is what you get with him, and the fact that his personality was used as an emotional punching bag by people he trusted and cared about, is really awful.

and i don’t fault him for sticking around shane. we’ve all witnessed toxic friendship/relationships, and im sure a lot of people understand how HARD it is to just get up and walk away. i think garrett tried his best to help shane and make him a better person, but i think it reached his limit, and he had a talk with andrew and they made the mutual desicion to move on without the rest of them.

AND THEYRE KILLING IT TOGETHER!!! i mean, fuck morgan for trying to shift blame on them for leaving, and fuck shane for obvious reasons and fuck ryland for no other reason that i hate him with an inch of my soul GOD he’s so fucking boring to look at. where’s the flavour???

i personally do not think that the nature of their friendship is something garrett is ever going to casually mention or make a sit down video about. i think the only information we’ll get is from shane’s pov either rather snarkily through rylands podcast or if shane ever attempts to come back to youtube, he might just mention them in passing OR they’ll all eventually all break the mutual on social media and that’ll be that. i feel like shane is the kind of person that won’t outright say anything on his own channel to hurt andrew or garrett because he’ll still want to keep up his uwu soft boy personality, but my god i can practically hear the fucking snide comments they’ll make on the podcast that don’t outright namedrop them, but they’ll probably make comments about “fake friends” or some shit like that, and all the brainless shane stans will use that as an excuse to be leave nasty comments on garrett and andrew’s stuff like they already do. so i guess we’ll just have to wait and see and know that hopefully andrew and garrett are prepared for any hate they’ll no doubt be receiving once shane tries to force his way back into the circle again.

so yeah, that’s my long answer lol. i don’t know if there was a discussion between them all but i have a feeling garrett just went away and kinda faded them out, and obviously im guessing there were conversations with andrew and shane since technically he worked for him, but yeah, there’s no way they’re all good friends behind the scenes. and im so fucking fine with that because andrew and garrett were 100% the reason i used to watch shane’s videos, and i’m glad they removed themselves from such a toxic environment where they went off and found success together without needing money or fame or any drama attached.

[the-desolated-quill]

BBC’s The War Of The Worlds blog - Episode 1

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

I was very much looking forward to the BBC’s adaptation of the H.G. Wells sci-fi classic. How could I not? It’s the definitive alien invasion story that jump-started an entire genre of science fiction  Not to mention this is the first adaptation made by a British film company and actually set in the time period it was written. I was very excited. Nothing could possibly dampen my spirits... until I learned who was writing it.

Peter Harness is a writer I’ve been less than kind to in the past. For those who don’t know, he wrote some of the worst episodes of Doctor Who. Remember that stupid story about the moon being an egg? Yeah, that was him. He also has a penchant for writing painfully forced and thinly veiled allegories with all the grace and subtlety of a ballet dancing rhino in a glow in the dark tutu. Kill The Moon, for example, was a pro life metaphor that portrayed the other side as being irrational baby killers, and his Zygon two parter was about Muslim immigration and integration, with the slimy repulsive Zygons being used as stand-ins for Muslims and non-white immigrants.

Harness’ ability to write allegorical stories about sensitive topics is... under-developed, to say the least. So naturally he’s the perfect candidate to adapt one of the most beloved sci-fi stories ever written. I mean, why not? The BBC have already ruined Sherlock Holmes, courtesy of Steven Moffat. Why stop there?

In all seriousness, while I wasn’t excited about the prospect of Harness getting his grubby mitts on War Of The Worlds, part of me hoped that maybe he could pull something out of the bag. You may recall I held a very similar negative view toward Chris Chibnall, and his first series as showrunner of Doctor Who was an extremely pleasant surprise. Maybe Harness could achieve his own metamorphosis.

He doesn’t.

The first episode of War Of The Worlds was fucking tedious to sit through. It actually looked quite promising initially. We get some nice moody shots of the surface of Mars as Eleanor Tomlinson recites the famous opening lines of the book. But then just after the opening titles, it all goes downhill.

I was sceptical when it was announced that this would be a three parter because that just seemed too much. A feature length film you could do. Maybe a two parter, at a push. But three episodes? Each an hour long? That’s going to require a lot of padding, and that’s exactly what Episode 1 is. We see the Martian cylinders launch from the planet at the beginning of the episode and it’s not until the forty minute mark where we get our first proper glimpse of the Tripods or the heat rays. So what do we get in the mean time? Mostly pointless shit.

The original War Of The Worlds book isn’t exactly remembered for its characterisation. Outside of the astronomer Ogilvy, none of the characters even have names, but to be fair to Wells, the characters themselves weren’t really the driving force of the narrative. The Martians were. The narrator, a journalist, was merely there to relay and facilitate the plot, giving us a first hand account of the subjugation of Earth. Fine for a book, but somewhat harder to get away with in a film or TV series, which is why most don’t even try. Every single adaptation of War Of The Worlds attempts to expand on the central characters to varying degrees of success, and the BBC version is no exception. But where Harness really miscalculates is in anticipating how much the audience is going to care about the characters, to which the answer is ‘not that much.’ We don’t want them to die obviously, but we’re not so interested in who they are or where they come from because they’re not the main focus. The Martians are. So to have a significant chunk of the episode focusing on their day to day lives is quite baffling. Not to mention unbelievably boring.

George, played by Rafe Spall, is living out of wedlock with Amy, played by Eleanor Tomlinson, which causes their neighbours’ tongues to clack and net curtains to twitch. The only person supporting their union is Ogilvy, played by Robert Carlysle, which is how they learn about the mysterious goings on the surface of Mars. This is all established in the first five minutes, but as I said, the Martians don’t properly show up until the forty minute mark. Until then we’re subjected to painfully forced and tediously dull ‘right on’ posturing and irrelevant social commentary that adds nothing to the core narrative.

Here’s the thing. I’ve got nothing against the idea of expanding the characters. I definitely have no problem with giving the narrator’s wife from the book more development and screen time. In fact I’m all in favour of it. What I do have a problem with, however, is when that expansion and development comes at the expense of the plot.

A man and a woman shacked up together in defiance of society is all well and good, but what does any of this have to do with War Of The Worlds? It’s not even as if Harness tries to connect this back to the story’s main themes of imperialism and colonialism. It’s mentioned that Amy was born and raised in India. Maybe if she was an Indian woman, it could have been more thematically relevant, but no. Once again we have a period drama with no people of colour because, as we all know, non-white people weren’t invented until 1962. Also, while I get that society at the time was very strict, I’m not entirely convinced George and Amy’s relationship would have been that scandalous to the point where it would have affected his career as a journalist. That just seems like a step too far and is merely there to add some artificial tension... in a story about Martians invading the Earth.

In the end it all comes down to this. Why the fuck should I care? What’s the bloody point of this? Yes it expands the characters, but it doesn’t contribute anything to the narrative. It just wastes time. Again, I must stress, we don’t get our first Martian until forty minutes into an hour long episode. Previous adaptations never felt the need to bore the audience to death with pointless shit because they knew what audiences came to see. Martians blowing shit up. Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of War Of The Worlds from 2005 didn’t piss about giving us needless exposition about Tom Cruise and his family. We’re given the basic info about the characters and their relationships within the first ten minutes before the Tripods emerge and the action gets going. The BBC version, in contrast, is just painfully slow, dictating every tiny thing about these characters even when it’s not relevant to the plot.

And the thing is, once we actually get to the bits from the actual book (you know? The bits people actually want to see?), it’s actually pretty good. The Tripod looks incredible, as was the scene in Horsell Common where we saw people getting killed by the heat ray. Unfortunately we have to slog through all this other crap before we can get to the good stuff.

Eleanor Tomlinson probably gives the strongest performance as Amy. It’s just a pity the character is so utterly uninteresting. Like I said, I’ve got nothing against giving her a bigger role than she had in the book, but it feels like Harness is more interested in showing off his feminist credentials than actually telling a story or creating a believable or likeable character. Her being an assistant to Ogilvy I think is a great idea, but it soon becomes clear that this was only done so other male scientists could comment on how unusual it is to have a woman digging up a crashed cylinder, which is kind of ridiculous because I’m pretty sure female scientists did exist back then and you don’t exactly need a penis to use a fucking shovel. Then things turn really stupid when George’s brother, played by Rupert Graves, starts blaming her for the Martian invasion, saying that everything was going fine until she came along. Exploring 19th century sexism is one thing, but this is just daft. There’s no interest in actually exploring the root causes of sexism back then. Instead Harness seems content with portraying men as being the equivalent of cartoon caricatures foaming at the mouth.

George, meanwhile, goes from being a fairly boring character to a downright hateful one when it’s revealed that he and Amy aren’t just living out of wedlock, but that he cheated on his missus because she was infertile. So not only do I not care about him, I now straight up want him to die because what the actual fuck?! And this is not helped by Rafe Spall’s incredibly wooden performance. Seriously, I’ve seen corpses with more life in them. When the Tripod first emerges, we see him stare at it in what I assume was supposed to be shock, but instead he just looked gormless. It’s honest to God one of the worst performances I think I’ve ever seen. There’s no emotional range to him whatsoever. He just blunders around wearing a confused frown on his face. It’s as if he had just wandered onto the set by mistake.

The biggest problem with this first episode is that Harness is focusing on all the wrong areas. A large segment is dedicated to George investigating the Dogger Bank incident, which seems to be an attempt at making a parallel between the UK’s tenuous relationship with Russia then and now. What this has to do with War Of The Worlds, I don’t know. There’s so far been no attempt at exploring the themes of the source material as we’re too busy with this shitty romance. There’s even a moment where we see the characters dig up the cylinder and take a photo only for the same exact scene to happen five minutes later. I mean for fuck sake!

And then there’s the pointless plot twists. First we get the cliched pregnancy reveal, then it’s revealed that the scenes we thought were on Mars turned out to actually be a post apocalyptic Earth with Amy and a seven year old kid who is presumably her son. Wait, how long has this fucking invasion been going on for?! It only lasted a couple of weeks in the book! What happened? Did the Martians get vaccinated? This just highlights to me how inept Harness is as a writer. He can’t just do a straight adaptation of War Of The Worlds. He has to engineer these pointless and utterly idiotic cliffhangers to get people to keep watching because the story and characters clearly aren’t doing that.

If I wasn’t committed to reviewing this mini-series, I honestly wouldn’t watch the rest of this. This first episode is legitimately terrible. Boring, poorly thought out and utterly, utterly clueless. Just like everything else Peter Harness has ever written. I don’t understand why he was chosen to adapt War Of The Worlds and I don’t understand why he chose to adapt it in this way. Why so much focus on pointless exposition? Why over-complicate the lives of the main characters? Why can’t they just be a normal married couple living a life of privilege until the Martians come and trample all over it? It makes no sense! Some could defend this saying it was building tension until the Martians emerged, but there’s a significant difference between making an audience nervously anticipate the Tripods arrival and making them wait impatiently for something, anything, interesting to happen.

[kitsmits]

About the Kakashi Anbu Arc...

Specifically, the anime filler arc in the final season that explores Kakashi’s life post-Kyuubi, pre-Team-7. First of all, I actually really like this filler arc. It fleshed out several character relationships (not least of all, Kakashi and Yamato/Tenzo/Kinoe) as well as the dichotomy between Danzo’s Root and the Hokage’s Anbu. There was action, political intrigue, Kakashi being a badass, Kakashi being vulnerable, Kakashi interacting with baby Yamato and baby Itachi...plus, I’m a sucker for glimpses into Root’s culture. Sure, there were some flaws, some plot holes, but for the most part, they were relatively minor in my mind.

Except for one.

The plot to assassinate Hiruzen.

I have several problems with this whole plot thread. Let’s take a look, shall we?

First, a quick recap: In this anime-only filler arc, after the Kyuubi attack, teenage Kakashi was left grieving, angry, alone. Along comes Danzo, giving him someone to blame for the tragedy: Hiruzen. It was Hiruzen who ordered all the young Shinobi (including Kakashi) to NOT interfere during the attack; if Kakashi had been allowed to fight, perhaps things would have turned out differently. Danzo then makes Kakashi an offer: Work for him. Spy on Hiruzen. Help Danzo put Konoha back on the right path.

Kakashi, in his grief, agrees.

So we see him passing along information to Danzo for a bit...and then, Kakashi comes across a Foundation kid with a supposedly extinct ability: Wood release. Put a pin in that - it’ll come up again soon.

Anyway, eventually, Kakashi becomes part of Danzo’s plot to assassinate the Hokage. However, Kakashi has a change of heart and instead warns Hiruzen of the plot. Danzo is thwarted; Hiruzen confronts him...and then essentially forgives him. Hiruzen tells Danzo that if he ever found the individual responsible for the plot, he would have every right to charge the person with treason and execute them...but he’d rather that person instead focus their energies on protecting the village. 

Some issues.

1. It was unnecessary from a story perspective.

From a story point of view, the assassination/double-cross subplot is supposedly what made Kakashi turn “back to the light,” so to speak. But here’s the thing: I don’t think that was the reason he turned on Danzo. It’s not that I think Kakashi was perfectly fine with the idea of assassinating the Hokage; it certainly contributed, I imagine. However, given the trauma in his life so far, especially being forced to kill a friend for the sake of the village, I think the Kakashi of this time had resigned himself to being a tool of assassination. If killing the Hokage was really the best thing for Konoha - as Danzo said it was - then he was probably prepared to do it. (Or at least believed he was.)

However, something else happened during this time that lead Kakashi to doubt Danzo’s intentions: Kakashi discovered that Danzo was hiding a Wood release user. It’s significant to me that Kakashi investigated the matter BEFORE deciding to tell the Hokage about Danzo’s plans. Hiruzen bringing up that Wood Release was one of the only ways to subdue the Kyuubi made Kakashi think: That ability is more important than ever in the village now. Why would Danzo be keeping it hidden away if he truly had the village’s best interests in mind?

TL;DR: Kakashi already had the doubts he needed about Danzo. An assassination, while certainly good for drama, wasn’t completely necessary for him to turn on Danzo. Plus...

2. The aftermath is VERY problematic.

There are two sides of this: Hiruzen and Kakashi. By allowing Danzo to get away with a thinly veiled warning, they both wind up looking at naive and/or horribly negligent - and well into the future, in Kakashi’s case. Hiruzen giving his old comrade the benefit of the doubt despite trying to KILL him...that’s one thing. I mean, I’m generally a fan of forgiveness, but this is extreme, even for me.

But Kakashi knowing about all of this, and NEVER bringing it up, say, to Tsunade? Or the Elders? (Not that I have the highest opinion of those two windbags...) Staying quiet about it while Danzo took power? I know, I know - Kishi didn’t actually figure this whole filler arc into the story. But do you see the problems it creates in hindsight, especially for consistent characterization? It makes Kakashi, a character defined partly by his intelligence and judgment, seem at best an idiot and at worst willfully negligent. A lot of the filler arc adds to his characterization and shows his growth (though most of that is focused on Kino-Tenz-Yams). But this? This takes away from it. It doesn’t make him flawed; it makes his actions (or lack thereof) reprehensible.

3. It could almost be seen as “out of character” for Danzo. (Yes, I’m serious.)

Yeah, we get it, Danzo is power-hungry and has wanted the Hokage hat ever since Tobirama tossed it to Hiruzen in the middle of a mini-war. He regularly undermines the Hokage office, acts on his own without the Hokage’s approval, and utilized shady, sometimes illegal means for his ends. He even holds his own forces back from assisting during Pein’s assault - while you could debate how much help they’d really have been, it’s still possible they COULD have saved at least a few lives. (...which would have been resurrected anyway, but let’s not open THAT can of worms.) Danzo has certainly committed egregious acts of subterfuge and sabotage.

But if he’d wanted to simply kill his way to the Hokage seat, he’d have done so long ago.

I put forth that assassinating a political figure of his own village was NOT in Danzo’s character, at least at that time. Assassination of a Konoha official is messy, risky, blatant. And it might not have even worked! Danzo would still need to be nominated, then chosen as the prime candidate, then approved by the Daimyo, then voted in by the Jonin...there were (apparently) quite a few hoops to jump through. Simply killing off the current Hokage wouldn’t have gotten all the work done. Heck, since the Uchiha clan was still around at the time, and I somehow doubt he had the best relationship with them in public, he’d have had a HARDER time getting the political support he needed.

(Huh...come to think of it, that COULD be part of the reason he wanted to get rid of the Uchiha clan...hmm...)

Point is, Danzo as he’s presented in strict canon is an opportunist, a reactionary, and frankly, a coward. From youth to old age, he’s preferred to stay back and let things play out around him, then take advantage of the outcome. We see this when he fails to volunteer himself as bait for Shinkaku and Ginkaku; we see it (in filler, but still) when he hesitates to put himself or Orochimaru forth as a Hokage candidate, post-third-war. We see it again when he keeps his troops from fighting Pein. Considering all of this...would he really be so bold and direct as to kill a Hokage?

“But the whole point of the failed assassination and Hiruzen’s forgiveness of it is that it made Danzo prioritize the village over his own ambitions!”

He still prioritized his own ambitions after that. He kept Root going in secret so that he’d have his own personal army. He continued to undermine Tsunade, trying to assassinate Sasuke without her knowledge. And again, there’s his purposeful inaction during the Pein attack. He may have convinced himself that he was only acting in the village’s interests, but he still prioritized his own.

Conclusion and caveats...

So, from a plot perspective, I kind of understand why they needed something other than the whole “Danzo’s hoarding a Mokuton user” thing for Kakashi to bring to Hiruzen at the start. I can see 2 uses for it:

A) It helped Kakashi prove his ability to judge situations for himself, thus making him one of Hiruzen’s most trusted Anbu operatives.

B) The writers wanted to save the Mokuton reveal for later - after “Kinoe” became “Tenzo” and had his own life-changing encounters that prepared him for leaving Root. After all, once Hiruzen was told of Kinoe/Tenzo’s existence, it became necessary to pull him out of Root. (I’ll admit, my memory on the timeline of this arc is a tad fuzzy...I can’t recall if Kakashi had already told Hiruzen about Kinoe before or not...and I’m too lazy right now to check.) Anyway, if they had Kakashi tell Hiruzen sooner, we might not have gotten the whole “Tenzo”/smoke-clan thing, or the whole “to kill Kakashi or not to kill Kakashi” thing, both of which wound up shaping Tenzo.

But I still think the assassination subplot made less sense than it attempted to make.

Also, it’s a tad inconvenient for certain aspects of my own fic, soooo yeah. There you have it: the real reason I want to retcon it :P

[theconservativebrief]

Every week, we pick a new episode of the week. It could be good. It could be bad. It will always be interesting. You can read the archives here. The episode of the week for July 15 through 21 is “Austerlitz,” the seventh episode of HBO’s Succession.

Have you opened your heart to the gospel of Succession? Since the show premiered on HBO in June, it’s the only thing I’ve been able to think about. In terms of the network’s programming, it feels like a more dramatic counterpart to Danny McBride and Jody Hill’s brilliant odes to contemporary Americana, Eastbound & Down and Vice Principals, the latter of which my Vox colleague Todd VanDerWerff described as “so dedicated to its own vision that it might make you laugh, and then make you want to throw up about five seconds later.”

All three shows are working with a similar set of tools. The characters are inherently unlikeable to the point that it’s startling to realize you’ve come to care about what happens to them, largely because the line between laughing with and laughing at them becomes so tenuous. They’re painfully funny, with the operative word being “painful.”

It’s just that Succession (created by The Thick of It’s Jesse Armstrong, if you needed any indication of the show’s pedigree) happens to be wrapped up in a more prestige-y looking package, and is working toward its central tragedy from the dramatic end of the scale rather than the comedic.

It’s that sense of cognitive dissonance that has largely allowed for Succession to fly under the radar. The show tells the story of a family-run media conglomerate wrestling with the question of who will take over if or when the patriarch chooses to step down. It looks too serious for how funny it initially is, but that humor is ultimately just as much of a defense mechanism as the brittle fronts put up by its characters, breaking apart and revealing deeper layers as the show tilts into disaster.

The show is a lot more fun than it might look. And it’s much more complex than the thinly veiled Murdoch family analog its advertising might lead you to expect.

As the first season has progressed, the series has grown into one of the most deftly executed dramas currently on TV. The show’s sixth episode, “Which Side Are You On?” ended in heart-pounding fashion with Kendall Roy’s (Jeremy Strong) failed attempt at staging a coup against his tyrannical father Logan (Brian Cox).

The sequence might as well have been a nightmare: Kendall was forced to dial into the meeting instead of attending in person, running through stalled traffic while on his phone (leaving his supporters to wilt under Logan’s gaze) and trying to interpret the stony silences on the other end of the line. The result — Logan remaining in power while Kendall was fired from the family business and left listlessly roaming the streets of New York — was blood-curdling.

That episode’s follow-up, “Austerlitz,” is a little less immediately showy, but it’s a neat microcosm of what Succession is, as well as perhaps the clearest example of how the show expertly strikes a balance between humor and heartbreak. If you’re not a Succession believer just yet, here are three reasons you should be, as explained by the episode.

“I want to have your back, and, uh … there’s also my back.” HBO

Arguably, none of the Roys are people you want to root for — despite being family, they can’t even root for each other. When Logan calls his kids together for family therapy (which turns out to be for positive PR rather than any actual inclination toward healing), one doesn’t show up, and the others can barely stifle their laughter when he says that everything he’s done has been for them.

This dynamic could easily become tiresome to watch, but the personas that Succession’s characters flaunt, whether it’s Kendall’s “business bro” posing or his younger brother Roman’s (Kieran Culkin) unrelenting penis-centric humor, have gradually been peeled back, transforming my desire to see these idiots get their comeuppance into genuine emotional investment. It’s a turn that would fall flat if the cast wasn’t so uniformly great. Their bad behavior, while not justifiable, comes from a place that any viewer should find at least a little familiar.

Granted, some characters are easier to care about than others. Siobhan Roy (Sarah Snook), tellingly nicknamed “Shiv,” is the most appealing (or least odious?) of the bunch, largely because she’s the only Roy child who seems to have secured any significant measure of independence from Logan.

Instead of going into the family business, she’s gone into politics, and when the two begin to overlap, her frustration is tangible. She doesn’t want to be defined by her family’s name, but it’s not her choice to make. And Snook is a master at playing tough to the point that when Logan finally reduces Shiv to tears in “Austerlitz,” it comes as a shock.

To that end, “Austerlitz” serves as a showcase for each character’s human flaws and insecurities, as the pretext of a family sit-down brings every character together under a single roof and holds a magnifying glass to the bonds between them. Even Shiv’s less self-possessed siblings — Kendall, Roman, and Connor (Alan Ruck), the eldest and least effective son — slowly start to feel more like human beings as the show makes clear just how badly Logan has broken all of his children. Watching him try to “win at therapy,” in Shiv’s words, is uniquely frustrating, and when the proceedings fall apart, there’s a sense of loss in the air rather than satisfaction.

Sweet, simple cousin Greg. HBO

Part of Succession’s emotional turn also comes from the way it deploys laughs. Armstrong uses cringe humor in abundance, first inviting us to draw a morbid kind of enjoyment from the antics of the Roy children before slowly pivoting to have us feel guilty for being complicit in their misery. But that’s not to say that the show isn’t also just plain funny.

In “Austerlitz,” for example, when therapy begins to break down, the therapist suggests everyone unwind by getting in the pool. The kids immediately tell him that doing so is out of the question because Logan can’t swim. “He doesn’t even trust water. It’s too wishy-washy.”

Moments like these are regularly punctuated by the way the show is shot, with little zooms in and out on the characters’ faces that are commonly used on shows like The Office or Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but rarely on “prestige dramas.”

Then there’s the way Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), Shiv’s fiancé, follows her around like an overeager puppy, pressing her for details on how therapy is going. His interest is both personal and practical: He works for her father. Though he knows it’s not a good time to try to angle for a better position in the company, he can’t help it — not that that should come as much of a surprise, given that his attempt to cheer Shiv up during the second episode of the series, which saw Logan hospitalized, was to propose to her in the hospital hallway.

Though Tom otherwise takes a back seat in “Austerlitz,” I’d be remiss not to mention that his rapport with cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) is the most consistently funny part of the show. Their status as the two outsiders to the Roy family — Greg is the black sheep cousin from Logan’s (practically estranged) brother’s side — immediately puts pressure on them in an environment that’s already close to its boiling point.

Unlike the people they orbit, they don’t come from money, making their vying for some kind of status all the more obvious. Greg phones his mom for advice, and Tom can’t stop trying to needle Shiv about how to best impress her family.

Tom loves Shiv, but he loves the power that the Roy name bears, too. As such, though he ought to be able to find common ground with Greg as another (relative) beggar at the feast, Greg also constitutes a threat to his position.

Tom is, to put it mildly, absolutely horrendous to Greg, subjecting him to near-constant verbal abuse (which he plays off as a joke, a tactic Greg is finally getting wise to) and using Greg as a pawn in his attempt to climb the Royco ladder.

It’s a demented relationship, but Macfadyen is so good at playing a sociopath, and Braun is such a delight, that it’s impossible not to laugh while watching as they navigate everything from a corporate “death pit” to eating ortolan, a delicacy that was also notably featured on Billions as a marker of wealth, as it involves consuming a protected species of songbird whole (and which Tom gleefully tells Greg is “kinda illegal”).

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Of course, Succession’s humor has become all the more precious as the series progresses. “Austerlitz” is particularly grim, as Kendall’s journey to family therapy takes him on a detour into a drug den, first. Early on in the season, it was established that Kendall is a recovering drug addict, and that his marriage fell apart as a result of his drug abuse and his commitment to his work — or perhaps more accurately, to his father.

His relapse is crushing, as is the knowledge that it is in equal parts due to just how low he’s been laid by getting fired from the company (and then being sued by his father for his insubordination), and to his father planting stories about a relapse in the tabloids.

When Kendall finally arrives at the New Mexico ranch where his family is gathered, he’s high out of his mind. He’s smiling throughout the ensuing confrontation with his father, but there’s no semblance of happiness in his attitude — there hasn’t been through the entirety of the show thus far.

“I was born lucky,” he says, but he knows the Roy silver spoon is a blessing and a curse. Like Shiv, he’s inextricably tied to his family despite how ill-suited he is for the shark tank it is, and he’s finally realized that the reason (or one of the reasons) that Logan seems to hate all of his children is that they were born with luxuries that he had to earn.

Strong is giving perhaps the most impressive performance on the show — every scene of his brings to mind the devastating finale of The Thick of It, in which spin doctor Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) finally decides he has nothing left to say — and is most clearly shepherding Succession toward the Greek tragedy it now seems it’s always been.

Tension is brewing between the Roys, and it’s clear that something horrible lies ahead, especially now that they all know they’re capable of stabbing each other in the back. Thanks to his father, Kendall has become a man with nothing to lose, which, for once, actually makes him dangerous. That is, if he’s able to keep from falling prey to his own monsters.

We’ve known from the start that the Roys are horrible people; what makes Succession so impressive is that it has managed to make their turning against each other so difficult to watch. It’s hard to imagine what would constitute a “happy” ending to the season — if one is even in the realm of possibility.

Despite how much we’ve learned about the Roys already, there’s still a lot left to unravel. To wit, in contrast to what the Roy children said about their father earlier in the episode, “Austerlitz” ends with a shot of Logan slowly swimming in the pool as his children depart one by one.

Succession airs Sundays at 10 pm on HBO.

Original Source -> HBO’s Succession has quietly become my favorite show of the summer

via The Conservative Brief