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carmenxjulia · 3 years

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Another Duane interview transcript, coming at you! This one was from a smaller Carmen Sandiego chatroom. There were several interviewers, so that’s why the name of the question asker changes. Get the details below the break! Stay tuned, more interview transcripts coming soon.

Duane Capizzi:

HI EVERYONE! I'M IN!

Sorry I'm late, I got lost on the way haha. Then got lost trying to change my PFP

Thanks for gathering! Shall we get started? Let's do some Q&A!

(as long as they are not geography questions haha)

Fuel:

What characters or plot points were cut from the final product?

Duane Capizzi:

Ooo, starting with a right hook to the jaw!

Let me think about that for a moment: I'm hesitant to give too much away because I'm really hoping we can tell more stories in this world at some point

Which is to say, we tend not to waste anything: if we don't use it when we originally planned, we usually find a way to use something later - and there's usually a "karmic" reason that we waited.

I'll also preface by saying this: I know season 3 was more of a mini-drop and some felt season 4 was rushed. But I wish EVERY season were longer. Season 1: ideally, i wanted the Pilot to be its own event and 10 more episodes after that (but we had to tell the post-Pilot story in 7. At the end of the day, that had its benefits: we got to the Shadowsan turn earlier and I think that's when a lot of viewers realized the ride they were truly in for). Season 2: we initially figured we'd need 5 episodes to have Carmen doing the ACME dance with Chief, and wound up doing it in 3 - mostly because it quickly became clear that Rio needed to be a 2 parter, and the Zack and Ivy backstory a rough 2 parter. So we squeezed 3 episodes worth of plot into 209. It was exhilarating!

So, we had hoped to have more episodes for Season 4 of course. We had a ton of ideas and had to compress things a bit. But honestly in many ways it was for the better. I know we all wanted to live in this world longer, but I think sometimes the flip side is true - when you have big ongoing storylines, it can get frustrating when some things drag out too long. But, we got all the "story" we wanted to tell in Season 4 - we just lost some "incident" if that makes sense. We would have taken longer to get there.

So, all that preface to answer the question: we wanted to do more musical numbers! We had a Bollywood dance sequence in a return to India caper with Paperstar. We wanted to do a famous Elvis suit theft in Las Vegas during an Elvis impersonator convention (Shadowsan's an early elvis guy; Brunt likes the Vegas "jumpsuit" era). We also wanted to do a thread where Gunnar gets captured by ACME so that Julia could interrogate him and he could play mind games with her a la Hannibal Lector and Clarice. CAVEAT TO ALL THIS: these were some ideas that were bouncing around, that may not have seen the light of day if we couldn't get them to work. But they were on our wish list.

re: "other stories" - I could live with these characters for another 32 episodes easily and there have of course been discussions. But alas, that is up to the powers that be. Let's keep fingers crossed - and keep the Carmen love alive online so that someone up there takes note

There is more of course, but those are some things that spring to mind.

Fuel:

Were there any scenes cut for time that were your favorite?

Duane Capizzi:

Not much springs to mind: our directors were amazing at getting everything in the scripts to fit naturally (and in fact, I was the one who was usually suggesting trims to let other things breathe, etc). We were limited to 22 minutes of episode time, NOT counting front and end credits so a little longer than the average show. We have a pretty good idea when the SCRIPT is too long, so the cutting usually happens at script stage before it gets to the board crew so that they don't waste efforts over-boarding material that won't be used.

We had hoped to build out Chase and Carmen teaming up for the first time, meeting at Carmen's hotel lobby etc for more scenes of them together; but had to reduce that to get that all to fit in the VERY packed episode 406. But again, tighter was fine considering. That's one area that leaps to mind. (note that when I say packed, I don't mean that in a bad way: we spend a lot of time pouring over details in editing to make sure everything gets its due).

If I think of anything, I'll circle back at a later point. But the simple answer is that scenes were usually trimmed or compressed at script rather than board or animatic. So nothing comes to mind. I know it's hard to believe, but "shorter is usually better."

except for my answers to fan questions of course

Fuel:

We saw that in s4 episode 6 that Julia's mother(?) is wearing a necklace remarkably similar to the one Julia wears all the time. Is this the same necklace and if so, why was it given to Julia?

Duane Capizzi:

Just when I thought I was detail oriented! Wow! You guys blow me away

I can't take credit for that: it was either the board artist or director who added that. They do slip things in! As I've said before, EVERYONE on the crew really brought their A-game and were as deep thinking and as passionate as I was/am about the show.

It's a nice detail and I would say your interpretation works!

It took me three or four reviews before noticing that the team had slipped in baby Carmen near the play set in Mom's front yard at the end of 408. When I caught it, I was like: bravo!

Fuel:

When they first met, Zack and Ivy said to Carmen that they were the only family they had, do you know what happened to the rest of Zack and Ivy's family?

Duane Capizzi:

I don't. At least, I don't yet until such a time that I might have the opportunity to explore that. It was important to their relationship with Carmen that they be orphans, so they had that common bond (aside from being "thieves who steal from bad guys" - even if it was only gonna be one time for Zack and Ivy).

I know there are writers out there who like to do entire bio's for characters up front but i'm not one of them. It could be a trap in many ways. I like to have a general idea but be open to the demands of the ongoing storyline. You discover things along the way - it's like you're taking a journey with the characters by writing them, and the longer you spend, the better you get to know them (that was not a prepared statement by the way - I just made that up but I'll have to use it again :). So in Z/I's case it wasn't important to the story or Carmen's relationship, we felt. Conversely, we STARTED with Shadowsan's family backstory with 203, but more important to me was that we use it as a platform to explain why he stays with Carmen and crew. He really has no home at that point, so it was relevant to the present ongoing story. Which is what made that especially powerful to me.

Also, there's always a push-pull between telling character back stories while balancing them with ongoing episodic plots. You have to service both. If you just tell back story, then you're writing a biography

Arden:

What was the biggest challenge when designing these characters, especially the pre-existing characters from the series in the 90's?

Duane Capizzi:

This is probably more of a question for Chromosphere, re: challenges. But from my standpoint overseeing that process, the first thing I'll say is that we weren't necessarily trying to be "true" to those characters since we reinvented nearly every one from the ground up. (with the exception of Carmen of course - her trademark red hat/coat weren't going anywhere! But mostly the update with Carmen was in the styling of her "outerwear"

ALTHOUGH: I will admit that I was pushing for Carmen to have shorter hair as Carmen. I thought it would be a cool update. Chromosphere were really passionate about giving her long full hair and I have to see that they were right. The short tomboy cut worked so well for Black Sheep anyway. We had a different hair style for each of her ages.

So about the reinventions: Gunnar is in spirit a similar character to the original (old colleague in Vile and an early mentor if I remember), but his presentation completely different. We weren't trying to be "in canon" with the original. The beauty of CSD is that every incarnation has been its own entity so that freed us to reimagine the characters. THE CLEANERS, for instance: gimme some Cleaner love! There were a pair of janitors from the original game named RICK AND NICK ICK. They were literally janitors, it was too silly for our purposes. But, it's one small step to make them "Cleaners" (in the sinister hit men sense) - and lo, our reinvention.

So to summarize the answer to your question, they weren't really challenges to me so much as FUN to creatively reinvent the original characters (many of which were from the game, so not really "characters" per se with dialogue and inner lives). Whenever we could, we tried to use character names from the originals and update their looks and personalities. Where we couldn't find an equivalent for what we needed, we created characters from whole cloth. For instance, it seemed a miss to do a heist show without a tunnel guy and a high rise climber guy. Hence, LC & ET, everyone's favorite taco truck vendors!

(yes, i've seen some short hair carmen fan art on Twitter - someone did a great one recently!)

Arden:

Are there plans to give us more of the characters in, say, novel/graphic novel form?

Duane Capizzi:

I know HMH has done a bunch and no doubt have more in works. There's currently a novelization of the Pilot with some additional material if anyone's interested. I consulted on the second one, Clue for Clue, because it falls in the timeline while Chase was still Interpol/pre-Acme so was tricky.

And depending on whether another series in this canon makes it to air, I may just approach them about writing one or two myself to get some "further adventures" our there. Anything is possible!

Arden:

If you could go back and change anything about the series, what would it be?

Duane Capizzi:

File under anecdote, but there was what I felt was an important expression on Gray that kept me awake at nights, from his graduation ceremony at Vile. When we revisited those flashbacks in the Gray arc in Season 4, I had them change his expression there (to be more evil less innocent). We had it corrected in 404 so was able to get permission to have Netflix "fix" the Pilot by adding that shot in. I am tenacious!

We really poured over everything, it's the series that I have virtually zero complaints with the end product to be honest. But the simple answer is: I would have gone back to 106 and "un-greek'd" Gray's nametag. It's sort of a rule for international that we scramble signage (which is weird for a show that takes place in many countries/languages, I know I know). It's mostly for localization/translation reasons. And I'm sure there are some countries where Gray's name might be spoken differently. But as a proper name, I think we could have made an exception and seen "Gray" on his name tag. See? Details! But that's about the worst of it

there's also like one small line from Chief in 208 where she indicates she knows Carmen is a good guy (something to that effect) which I felt was too absolute and would have tweaked the line to temper it a bit. It's tiny, but looking back it sort of bugs me and I kick myself for not catching it. But this is absolutely the series I wanted and couldn't be happier.

Carmen:

How did Carmen know she could trust Julia? As far as we know, she has not seen or heard Julia defending her, and in the Fashionista Caper, Julia even held up her gas gun to her, saying she was under arrest. Do you have any opinions on this? Was it just intuition?

Duane Capizzi:

I'm gonna go with intuition

Carmen was raised on an island with some hardened criminal types. I think she's a pretty good judge of character. Poor Julia, trying to be tough with Carmen didn't suit her.

But, great observation! I'd have to mentally step through everything to see if Carmen had any earlier indication but i think you're right there.

Yes, sometimes you just gotta follow your heart

Carmen:

Are there any characters that didn't actually interact that you think would get along well?

Duane Capizzi:

Amazing question! First, I'd have to think more about who DIDN'T meet - you're asking the hard questions haha. But "get along well" is very specific! Hmmm, care to volley anyone?

I'll also add that so many smaller moments get lost in the "binge" of it all, but I am surprised how few fans have noted the first meeting between Player and Julia. THAT was a good one IMO! Very sweet!

Before getting back to your question, I also want to add that we were originally going to find a way for Carmen to lose her earring in Stockholm so that Julia could pick it up and be communicating with Player. BUT, I cut it at treatment stage because I knew we didn't have room in that episode to service it. Circling back to questions 1 & 2, another case where it turned out better saved for later IMO (saving Player meeting Julia, not to mention the earring business in 402 with Ivy).

Oh of course, Julia and any of the other Vile members. It would have been Gunnar for my vote, as mentioned earlier. We probably would not have had Julia meet anyone else and mixed it up more. I like that Cleo sort of became J's personal nemesis.

YES, SONIA & XIFENG (and LUPE PELIGRO, if I can add). The intent was (and is, if we ever get to revisit) to see them again in Carmen's travels. We started to expand Carmen's world but when we finally learned the finite number of episodes we had to finish the story, we drilled back down into the essentials. Would love to see them some day!

I'm hesitant to share too many things I have in mind in this forum for hope that they will see the light of day one day. You know, "spoilers"

Julia:

Do you have any opinions on Zari? Just in general? Some thoughts on her backstory would be nice if possible

Duane Capizzi:

I love Zari! I really don't have any back story on her at this point. She was originally just "Agent B" but when the need arose to give story points to another agent, we chose her because she looked so awesome! And Sharon Muthu gave voice to her so wonderfully.

I love when we finally teamed her with Chase. Hopefully the anticipation was that she would give him a hard time. I love that we defied expectation (organically, of course) and had her respect him by the end of that episode (for believing that he foiled Carmen!)

Julia:

Do you have any thoughts on small facts about any character, major or minor, that you think are fun/interesting to think about, but don't necessarily add to the plot itself?

Duane Capizzi:

Bellum, like myself, likes cats. But you knew that!

I try to put everything pertinent on screen, doing double duty to service any given episode's story but also the overarching story. That "journey" thing I mentioned earlier - we had no idea Chase falling on his own car would be a thing when I first came up with it. But as other characters refer to the incident, it took on a life of its own and made the characters feel more real.

Sorta kinda related to this question and some earlier ones, I will say that I DO think there's more to learn about Shadowsan's past vis a vis Lady Dokuso: it's clear to me that they have a history together, and it's something I hope to explore someday soon (maybe in a book if not another series

Julia:

Are the Carmen Sandiego books a part of canon?

Duane Capizzi:

I only consulted on the first two or three (too busy with series!) and have not read them, so hard for me to answer in a definite way. They are definitely in the universe we've created, but not in the timeline that I know of (which would have been too hard to pull off with our script development running concurrently). But do know that the book team at HMH pays close attention to the series and world so they should be perfectly compatible. Look no further to their clever social media on the series for example.

Kenz:

We saw in season 4 that Julia and Carmen helped each other mid to long term; would there ever be a possibility that Julia would permanently or semi-permanently join team Red?

Duane Capizzi:

Of course there's a possibility. But in a sense, with ACME now finally on Carmen's side, in a sense if Carmen were back in the game Julia, Chase, Zack and Ivy would ALL be an extension of Carmen's crew. But, would J remain with ACME or literally come to Carmen's team at her HQ? As they said in an old radio show: "Only The Duane Capizzi knows ..."

Kenz:

Where do you see Carmen in her retirement (if she retires)? Do you think she would still travel the world or settle down somewhere? Similarly, do you have any thoughts on what some other characters could be doing years down the line?

Duane Capizzi:

That is a big question, and one difficult to answer without some potential future spoilers (and yes, I really want to tell more Carmen stories if you can't tell But I'll answer by giving you one "read" on our open-ended ending as seen in 408 (read no further if you haven't seen it - yeah, right haha). The ending suggests to me that Carmen settled down for a spell to forge that relationship with her mother, to make up for lost time. But, if that is indeed Carmen that we see on the rooftop, I think the ending suggests that Carmen doesn't stay still for very long. If Vile is back, there is work to be done! Carmen has a life mission - she's one determined lady.

But of course, it's deliberately ambiguous: "anyone with your heart, wisdom and courage can be Carmen Sandiego." Is it Carmen? Sonia? Someone we haven't met? I think both endings resonate: Caroline and I always said "Carmen is bigger than a person, Carmen is a movement" would be a great message to end the series on. And I think our ending resolves this chapter of Carmen's journey as a person, but also elevates her to mythic status. Which is why I love it!

And, that seems to me a pretty perfect question and answer to end our chat on. Thanks everyone! Again, I cannot tell you how moved I am to see that we have such a passionate, intelligent and talented fan base. THANK YOU.

Take care guys, thanks again for having me! 'night!

#Carmen Sandiego #CS Crew #Duane Capizzi #Interview #Transcript

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belleandkurtbastian · 3 years

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Glee Season 1 rewatch recap

I just want to get some general thoughts out. I thought about liveblogging every episode, and I did tweet sporadically, but I think I've said most of what I have to say about Glee specifics over the past 12 years. I'm going to pull some thoughts from Jenna and Kevin's podcast "Showmance", too, as I listened to that alongside the season.

Season 1a

I don't think this is a controversial opinion: Season 1a is Glee at its purest and most consistent. It's not perfect by any means, and I'll get into that in a moment, but the purest distillation of the messages of hope and, yes, inclusion are in this first half-season. The characterisations are at their most consistent, especially as it pertains to the adults, and the overall arc felt focussed, if a little bloated at times.

But yes, it's not perfect. My main complaint about Season 1a, which WAS mostly fixed in the second half of the season, is the sheer amount of ableist language.

The tone of S1a was more dramatic than the rest of the series. Yes, there was still levity and comedy, and yes Terri and Sue were both absolutely ridiculous characters... But fundamentally, the tone was set by drama, not so much by the comedy.

Which comes back to the ableism. And other language, but the ableism is the one that sticks out the most. In the first four episodes, we get multiple uses of the word "cripple" to refer to Artie, and Rachel even uses the phrase "chomosomally challenged" at one point to refer to the football team... This turns around mostly by the time of Wheels, but I feel that RIB were leaning more on the shock factor and feeling "maybe we'll get around to actually addressing this" rather than proactively addressing it at all.

But overall, I think the tone of S1a was reasonable... And it's also the ONLY season where Will really attempts fairness in the club. Half the season is devoted to the ongoing Rachel arc of "Will don't give me everything I want", which continues through the rest of the show. But in S1a, she's actually right. Will isn't bowing to Rachel's every whim, while in the later seasons he DOES.

Season 1b

Season 1b is an interesting one. It's certainly not as polished as S1a, but it's also not gone off the deep end like the show really does by S4. I'd say it's pretty much halfway between S1a's heightened drama and S2 starting to lean more towards comedy. It's just a pretty pure dramedy, but with the usual heightened absurdity brought by Sue and the rest of the adult characters.

Tonally, it's pretty consistent. Plot-wise, I don't think it really holds up. They kind of wrote themselves into a bit of a weird corner. They set up basically every S1b plot thread in S1a. Vocal Adrenaline, Will's divorce, Will/Emma, Quinn's pregnancy... They basically left all the hard work for the second half of the season, and had to find a way to turn it around.

And I think on that backdrop they actually didn't do a bad job of it. The second half focusses much more heavily on the kids, and moves focus away from the adults, but it also suffers a little for that, because the writers weren't quite confident in their ability to write for those characters yet...

I think that of the first three seasons, 1b might be the weakest run. Maybe I'm misremembering S3, but I feel like as absurd as S3 could be, it was at least relatively consistent in its absurdity, while S1b had a lot of moments where you go "That doesn't quite work." Kevin and Jenna had the same opinion, roughly, too. There are just a lot of times in S1b where it feels like they're scrambling to tie things together.

Some more specifics overall:

Kurt and Burt

It's always the highlight of the show, and I think the fear I had was that the Kurt and Burt stuff just wouldn't hold up 11 years later... But honestly, I think it still worked.

I'm not going to pretend that everything Burt did was perfect (I've always been one of Burt's bigger critics in the fandom, from what I've seen), but my GOD Chris and Mike both sold the heart of that relationship. I had completely forgotten how well their scene with Finn in Theatricality went over, too. Burt wasn't hiding from his own past, and he was owning up to using words like "faggy" and "retard" when he was younger, but he really sold that scene.

It's tempting to think that time has marched on, but honestly... the rawness of the Kurt and Burt stories has not aged, and it is still as relevant today as it was in 2009 when it first aired.

Terri and Sue

This is basically me cribbing straight from the Showmance Glee Recaps, but Kevin and Jenna are absolutely right: Jessalyn Gilsig SET the tone of the show. Don't get me wrong, it's ridiculous and Terri's plan makes no sense... but if you watch it from the right angle, you get what Emma says about how you can feel for Terri's worries throughout the season.

But Jane also sells her part so well. It takes a little while for Sue's role to really cement itself, but by the time Jessalyn leaves the series it feels fine because Jane has really grown into the larger-than-life outsider role in the cast.

Rachel and her love interests

Rachel gets around in this season. It's not a slight against her, it's just a little jarring because so much of her plot over time is about how people don't like her... But she has three boys in just this one season. Yes, Puck was a brief thing, and she and Finn never really got going... But she has both of them AND Jesse at different points.

Of which speaking: it has been LITERALLY ELEVEN YEARS and I am still mad that they cut "Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love" from 1x14 Hell-O. It's not that they needed another Rachel number on the show, or even that they needed another Jesse number. It's that I think that scene really SELLS the Rachel/Jesse relationship, and without it the relationship feels a little hollow. Which is weird, because it's Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff. That relationship is barely even acting! It just needed the background to it.

Shelby, VA, Quinn

Anyone else noticed that Shelby feels... underutilised and a little forced into this season?

The whole "Rachel finds her mother" storyline just felt a little rushed... They gave Idina several numbers in the season, because if you've got Idina Menzel you fucking USE Idina Menzel... but there was a lack of organicness to them.

This problem would ABSOLUTELY have been worse if the original episode order had been retained. 1x20 and 1x21 Theatricality and Funk were originally the other way around, and that absolutely would not have helped here. The distance from the acceptance and departure in Theatricality to the final episode, Journey, already feels like there wasn't time to let it sit in between, but if those episodes were back-to-back it would have been worse. Honestly, I think Theatricality could have done with being moved up another episode, to x19, so that the Jesse departure stuff would make more sense in terms of timing, without the whole thing feeling rushed.

Speaking of Jesse... They really shoehorned Vocal Adrenaline performances into the show, right? Like, I'm not complaining... it's just that not all of those VA performances had real plot justifications :P

And finally, Quinn...

I would have liked to have seen the Shelby/Quinn interaction play out a little longer. I think like so much in the back few episodes, it could have done with another episode of buffer. It would have been a nice bookend for the season if Quinn and Puck AGREED to give Shelby their baby BEFORE it was born, and with Rachel's blessing, rather than their one interaction being stormed through.

On to Season 2, I guess?

#glee #glee meta #glee season 1

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panharmonium · 4 years

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since i am on the cusp of watching the last four episodes of merlin (again, disclaimer: these are episodes i have never seen, and for which i still remain unspoiled, so please help me continue to stay spoiler-free for the next couple of days), i wanted to try to set down a record of where my thoughts are now, because you can only be in a place where you haven’t finished something once - “once a thing is known, it can’t be unknown,” etc - i’ll never be able to come back to this mindset, so i’d like to be able to remember what i was thinking before i knew how it ended. if nothing else, this will mean that i can come back here and laugh at my wildly off-base suspicions.

this is relevant to absolutely nobody, since everybody else finished this show eight years ago; so under the cut it goes!

so.

right now i have a feeling that merlin is going to end...badly. i’ve never been outright spoiled for what happens at the end of this show, but various little hints of feelings i’ve picked up from people just indicate that...it’s not a good time. it would be nice to be wrong! but that is just the sense i have gotten.

with that in mind, my current thinking is as follows:

arthur: i think arthur’s doomed. i used to think it was going to be merlin, but that was last year, and i’ve recalibrated and rewatched since then, and honestly, ‘the disir’ gives me a real bad feeling. you can’t just ignore all these people being like “THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE! IT WILL NOT COME AGAIN!” i’m not sure if he’s doomed now, or if they’re gonna have him survive the immediate crisis and then fast-forward to the future so we can watch him die and get shipped off to avalon later, but either way, i think arthur’s in trouble.

(and, quite frankly, i don’t think merlin’s going to get his good ending, either. i’m afraid he’s going to end up dead or living as a hermit or trapped in dragoon’s ancient body or something stupid like that.)

(i would LOVE to be wrong, fyi. i have absolutely no reason to have these suspicions other than the vague sense from others that the ending of this show made people bitterly unhappy.)

i don’t know how there is a way for them to do this that doesn’t feel like a huge waste or something that doesn’t make sense. the messaging on this show has always been that the time of albion hasn’t actually happened yet, that arthur is going to unite the land and be the greatest king of all time. the message has never been that he’s already done it. like - it’s never been presented as “the three years between S4 and S5 were what we consider to be the once and future king’s glorious reign.” so it just feels...like it would be very weird to remove arthur without that promise ever being fulfilled. i’m not sure how they can manage that without pulling the rug out from under their audience in an unpleasant/dishonest way.

i also don’t see how this kind of ending would work without breaking the show’s promise to merlin - that one day he will be known for who and what he is, that he and arthur are destined for greatness, that the appearance of a white dragon “BODES WELL” for them and the world they are trying to build.

mordred: i have no idea what’s going to happen with mordred. i stand by what i said before, that i like him and don’t care if that means i get burned. i don’t know if they’re planning on having him either a) be revealed as a traitor with his own agenda (one not necessary aligned with morgana’s) or b) be sincerely trying to be a good knight but doing a 180 and turning on arthur due to...idk, frustration about not being accepted, old grudge-holding from that confrontation with merlin when he was a kid, new grudge-holding from merlin constantly trying to get him killed, etc.

i have always been concerned that merlin’s behavior is going to drive mordred to do something evil, thus accidentally bringing about the events he’s trying to prevent, so that still looms large in my mind.

morgana: ????? whatever plan she has is going to blow up in her face, it seems, given the substance of merlin’s vision in 5.01 (not that she appears to have a plan at all, this season - she’s been all about the wacky schemes, lately; she has no allies and no army, as far as we know. (that will change, though, i’m sure, once we get to That Dread Place, though how, i don’t know.) “the legends speak of an alliance between mordred and morgana” - so maybe mordred ends up sort of helping her after all, and turning on her in the end (though he’s already done that, it seems, so i really don’t know how that makes sense).

if it were up to me, i’d want morgana to be released, at the end of everything. not redeemed, exactly - i don’t think she would cozy up in camelot with everybody and let things go back to normal, but i think she could be more than what she is. i think it would be an appropriate arc, actually, for us to see her losing her allies and her armies, for her to see people drifting away from her methods, like when annis refuses to help her any further in 4.05. morgana started off as the voice of moral authority on this show, but she’s descended far enough now that she’s driving people away from her cause.

but i still think she deserves a chance. i think she’s the kind of person who has the capacity to come back from the brink. i would like to see further exploration of the conflict she obviously feels when mordred appeals to her humanity in 5.09. i would like to see the conflict she must feel about hurting people she used to love, and i would like to see conflict from them in her direction, as well. i don’t believe it would be simple for arthur to ever consider killing his sister. i don’t think gwen would just give up on morgana without a fight. i do think merlin, for his part, has hardened his heart against her, and that seems appropriate, given their history, but i also think that merlin’s primary motivator in this world is love.

i think he could learn. i think he would realize, after some difficulty, that he owes it to her to try to reach her, somehow.

gwen: it’s hard for me to say what i expect for gwen, because honestly, she hasn’t had much of an arc this season, and therefore we don’t have much to work with. i’m not sure if TPTB just stopped knowing what to do with her once she became queen, or what, but if i had been putting down my expectations for her in season 5 as a whole, i would have expected to see gwen kind of like - struggling a bit with her huge change in circumstance (from servant to queen, i mean, that’s massive; there would be so many things she’d have to adjust to, and then dealing with other people as well, not all of whom would be thrilled by her upward mobility - eg nobles who are threatened by the idea that common folk feel like they can aspire to the second highest office in the land, or other servants who used to be her friends and would never wish her ill but are now maybe nervous around her - but none of that happened, so i honestly don’t know what the plan is for her. i would have liked to see gwen showing up a bit more for merlin, i suppose...they were so close, before, and if anyone would have noticed that something was bothering merlin, gwen would have - but there’s just this gap between them now.

gwaine, too. gwaine and merlin were tight. and now they’re sort of…i mean, gwaine is there, and he on his end is still invested in merlin, but there’s a weird distancing happening between them. merlin is too preoccupied with the all-consuming ‘make sure arthur doesn’t die’ to put much of himself into his other relationships.

to be clear, i’m not actually criticizing that as a writing decision. i do think it’s something merlin would do. i think it absolutely makes sense for merlin to be shutting down all the “extra” parts of his life, one after another, until the only thing left is the Mission. his “destiny.” he can only focus on that one thing. he only thinks his life is worth something if he can succeed at this one thing.

it makes me very sad, but i do think it’s something that would happen to him. it strikes me as an appropriate step for his character arc. because merlin in S5 is kind of disintegrating, and even in S4 he was starting to pull away from other people. but i would expect this problem to be addressed as season 5 progressed, and i fully do not expect that to happen now.

i’m honestly not sure the show actually sees it as a problem at all. i’m not sure...i can never tell if this show understands that merlin feels like all of his relationships are shams, that he feels that everyone who “loves” him would hate him if they knew who he actually was, not just arthur. he thinks people only care about him because he lies. he thinks his true self is fundamentally unlovable, in this particular world. he doesn’t remember what genuine friendship feels like anymore - it’s been such a long time since he experienced it.

i think that’s a problem. i expected it to be one of the problems we would address in S5. but i’m not sure we’re actually going there.

gaius: i was REAL concerned about gaius when we started S5. i was sure he was a goner. he’d already survived way longer than i expected him to and i was so pleased about that fact; i loved it; i loved how merlin said “camelot needs BOTH of us” and refused to ever leave him behind.

i’m still kind of um...worried about him, i guess. i’m not sure where he would fit in a post-finale world. though that really depends on where the finale leaves us.

the dragons: don’t even ask me. are we ever going to get clarification on how kilgharrah allowed aithusa to get swept up by morgana and then trapped in a pit for two years? nah? okay then.

i would really, really like merlin to be able to help aithusa. it doesn’t matter if aithusa is “with” morgana; merlin is still a dragonlord. he would still feel responsible. he would still care. you can tell how upset he is when he sees aithusa in 5.02. i hope we can get something to this effect - who knows, maybe he and morgana can connect on this one thing.

wider concerns: the magical community. i’ve been waiting for merlin to take a stand for them for a long time, but again, i don’t think we’re going there. i wish we were, but merlin thinks the only way he can help them is by helping arthur, because someone somewhere once told him arthur was the one who could put everything right.

(and again, that’s something that makes me sad. why does this community have to wait for their oppressor to slowly, maybe come around? the fact that we, the audience, are fond of arthur doesn’t make it okay for anyone to tell a group of oppressed people to sit around and wait their turn. they deserve to be free now. merlin deserves to be free now. these people have every right to declare themselves free people, unbowed and unshackled - morgana is right about that much, at least.)

wider concerns: the political situation. is anyone ever going to actually explain what albion looks like? the show keeps saying “the five kingdoms” when there are DEMONSTRABLY more than five monarchs introduced across various seasons - are there just five extra-prominent kingdoms, like medieval superpowers? or what? this wasn’t really a big deal before and you could kind of handwave it away, but if arthur’s supposed to be uniting these places, it becomes a little more relevant.

and of course, merlin:

i don’t want to write too much about my many many fears for merlin himself here. i’ve written about them enough elsewhere, and, as gaius says, “i’m not sure my heart can take it.”

suffice to say, my biggest fear is that merlin won’t get his good ending.

for years, people have been telling merlin (and us, by extension!) that one day, someday, if he struggles enough, if he suffers enough, if he is very, very patient, and very, very strong, he will finally be known and loved for who he is.

i am afraid that these people were either mistaken or lying.

people shouldn’t have to earn their happiness in the first place, but by god, if they did, merlin has done enough. he has been hiding in the shadows all his life, doing nothing but help people and sacrifice himself for others’ sakes, even as he believes that all the people he cares about would hate the person he is inside.

he deserves a spot in the sun.

#getting ready #we're watching 5.10 tonight #been kind of staring at the clock dreading the passage of minutes #until we sit down to start the episode #but it's happening #can't put it off any longer #time to rip off this band-aid #O____O #the once and future slowburn #meta #(sort of)

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wordssometimesfail · 4 years

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An Extremely Belated and Unasked-For Dissection of the HIMYM Finale

So, I recently hung out with a teenage cousin of mine. He told me that he had just discovered How I Met Your Mother on Netflix, and was a couple of episodes away from the series finale. Since the show’s been finished for a while and the internet fallout was so prolific, I asked him if he’d been spoiled for the ending. He said no, but then began insisting that I tell him what happens. 10-15 minutes of begging later, I finally relented and gave him a bullet-point summary of the finale.

He burst out laughing, said I was a bad liar, and asked for the real ending.

Instead of digging in my heels, I shrugged and told him he’d just have to watch it, so, y’know, that’ll be hilarious. But it got me thinking.

I, like everyone else, felt so fucking betrayed by the ending of HIMYM. Because it affected me so much, in fact, I became a bit obsessed with it. I went back to the show not long after the finale aired, just to watch old episodes again. This was partially because it had been a “comfort watch” for me for so long, and partially because I felt a deep-seated need to dissect the show as a whole.

And the thing is, if you rewatch the show with the ending in mind, it is very easy to see that they kept the ending in their heads the entire time. It’s decently, if subtly, foreshadowed. While the characters’ behaviour in the finale is frustrating, it is actually fairly consistent with their established personalities. And the misogynistic subtext of the finale was, unfortunately, a mainstay of the show long before that point. We gave C&C a lot of shit at the time for the ending coming out of nowhere, but outside of a few minor timeline/continuity issues, honestly? It didn’t. The groundwork was laid, and the clues were there all along.

So... why did it feel unearned? Why did almost no one see it coming, even avid, weekly watchers? Why does it sound so much like a bad lie?

I think the main problem came in when the showrunners realized that they were likely not going to be cancelled until the story was done. If you look at the first 4 seasons, you can see where they left themselves lifelines to complete Ted’s story if the plug were preemptively pulled:

Cancelled in Season 1 - Victoria becomes the Mother. Robin and Ted have feelings for one another, but because of timing and circumstance, they never pull the trigger. The audience was (presumably) rooting for them all season, so seeing them end up together years after Victoria’s death is satisfying, and feels like the resolution of years-long tension. You CAN love again after losing a beloved partner! (In hindsight, considering the ending they went with, I kinda wish the series had ended here.)

Cancelled in Season 2 - Robin and Ted break up earlier than they do in-show. Ted meets the Mother at Marshall and Lily’s wedding, which also happens earlier than it does in-show. While in this timeline the audience HAS seen Robin & Ted as a couple and there is less UST to resolve, the toxicity of their relationship has not yet been explored, so seeing them get back together has more of a “they’re finally ready for each other” feel.

Cancelled in Season 3 or 4 - Stella becomes the Mother. The “Shelter Island” wedding ends in a reception and a honeymoon, and the pacing is drastically altered. Again, Robin & Ted have not really relapsed in this timeline - they broke up and are both miserable about it, regretting what they did but both being too proud to admit as much, until it’s too late and Ted has fallen for someone else. The Barney/Robin hookup in S3 makes this a bit messier, but basically works. The rift caused by their hookup (+ Robin begging Ted not to marry Stella before the ceremony) kicks off the dissolution of the gang, and either...

Barney doesn’t catch feelings in this timeline and that’s the end of it.

Barney doesn’t catch feelings, but they continue a FWB relationship that eventually implodes as Robin realizes she wants what she had with Ted again, she can’t do casual anymore.

Barney does catch feelings, but upon accepting that Robin will always be pining for someone else, “relapses” and goes for the Perfect Month. (This one works whether they do the FWB thing or not.)

Ultimately, the tragedy of poor timing strikes again, and there is still some narrative satisfaction to the Ted/Robin endgame.

Barney’s finale plotline (unplanned daughter changing his life) would’ve worked if the show had ended at any of these points, since Barney’s secret desire for romance & family wasn’t really explicitly explored until later. Marshall & Lily’s finale plotline (ascent into picket-fence bliss at the expense of their beloved status quo) works no matter what, mainly because that was their overarching plotline for the entire show.

While the original ending concept was showing its wear as we approached the end of the actual S4, there was still some time to salvage it after this. The death knell came, not when Barney expressed romantic interest in Robin, but when Robin returned that interest.

And this isn’t about to turn into a screed about how Swarkles should’ve been endgame! Upon rewatching the show, I actually like Swarkles a lot more in theory than I do in practice - the showrunners went out of their way to make the pairing seem great, but act toxic. They have FANTASTIC moments, but those moments are strung together by poor communication, self-destruction, and Robin at her most insufferable (her desperate attempts at getting Barney to like her again in the first half of S8 were... *shudders*). They, much the same as Ted and Robin, are clearly shown to Not Work.

Even so, from the S4 finale onward, the show began to build toward Barney and Robin’s wedding, and that killed the planned ending. I say this began at the end of S4 because, as I said before, it isn’t until Robin explicitly returns Barney’s feelings that Swarkles becomes a threat to Ted/Robin - or, at least, a threat as perceived by the audience. Beyond the fact that this inadvertently turned Swarkles into a fan-favourite pairing, and was a large part of why the ending was poorly-received, it effectively changes the story.

Before canon Robin/Barney, no one other than Ted was really presented as a viable romantic option for Robin. She wasn’t interested in getting serious with anyone else, she didn’t have that electric connection with anyone else. In S1′s “Zip, Zip, Zip”, Robin turns Barney down (despite him offering the casual, fun fling she purports to want) because she’s hung up on Ted. In S3, Robin sleeps with Barney but is uninterested in doing so again, and her attentions are quickly back on Ted (though at this point it’s more unspoken). No matter who Robin hooked up with, even when it was another principal character in the ensemble cast, the primary tension was always between her and Ted. But as soon as she develops real, romantic feelings for Barney, that tension is gone.

And it... never really came back in the same way.

Other than their FWB arrangement in S4′s “Benefits” and a couple of near-misses later, Robin and Ted are not involved again until the end of the series. In fact, in “Benefits”, neither Ted nor Robin are interested in taking their relapse further - they only want casual sex, and are so romantically disinterested in one another that Ted ends the arrangement for Barney’s sake in the same goddamn episode. Though Ted does express that he still has feelings for Robin as early as S5, at no point does she reciprocate in any meaningful way. All of the romantic tension between them after the fact is one-sided. Robin is no longer romantically interested in Ted by approximately the midpoint of Season 4, her attentions are firmly on Barney (and later, other serious romantic interests) by the end of Season 4, and she isn’t interested in Ted again until the final episodes of the show.

The problem here isn’t that Robin had other serious romantic relationships, but that Ted was no longer a serious option in her mind for so much of the show’s run. Starting in S6, the wedding build starts in earnest, meaning that for four whole seasons (S6, S7, S8, and S9), the audience knows that someone is getting married. We’re told that Ted meets the Mother at the wedding, so there’s Zero chance of any of his relationships working out during that 4-season period - the tension is gone from his love-life, because we know that we’re waiting and we know what we’re waiting for. Suddenly, Robin and Barney are the center of the romantic tension of the show, and... Robin hasn’t been interested in Ted for a year. She and Barney are involved in a love quadrangle plot of which Ted is only an observer. By the time it’s confirmed, it’s painfully obvious that Robin is the bride at the foretold wedding, even with Barney’s red-herring girlfriends tossed in the mix. We spend all of Season 8 building up to the wedding. We spend all of Season 9 on the wedding weekend. Barney and Robin actually address the more toxic aspects of their relationship, and resolve to work on them (something Ted and Robin never actually did). We meet the Mother, and spend a season gleefully building up to the Mother meeting Ted.

Remind me... why are we supposed to want Ted and Robin to get together in the end?

There are other issues with the finale that bother me, but are not the focus of this rant as I don’t think they’re the Biggest Problem:

The gang was always going to drift apart, but they seem to stay in frequent contact with one another in flash-forwards that we see earlier in the show. This is... not super supported by the finale. (Ex. If [roughly] kindergarten-age Luke and Penny drew pictures of times they hung out with Aunt Robin, why does the finale imply they barely got to know her until after their mother passed?)

We knew for several seasons that Barney DID want a wife & kids, he was just afraid to admit it or pursue it because he thought he was too far gone. Yet we’re supposed to believe that his “relapse” after his breakup with Robin was him going back to the “real Barney”, and that despite having had 3 meaningful, serious romantic relationships throughout the series, one of which led to a marriage, he could not be arsed to so much as learn the name of the mother of his child. Despite getting 4 seasons of significant character development re: vulnerability, love, and relationships, he is supposed to have learned nothing, and changed not a whit. (NPH’s stance on this, that you may “want” Barney to change but some people don’t change, is... lame, imho, since we didn’t just want Barney to change, we were told and shown that he was actively changing, even if he wasn’t fully there yet.)

On that same note, the fact that Barney didn’t “really” change until his daughter was born implies that things might’ve worked out with Robin if she’d been able to bear him children. Also, implies that his speech to his mom about how Robin means more to him than the possibility of having children was insincere or at least misguided. Gross.

We all know about the Mother = Uterus shit, and while I don’t necessarily dislike the idea of the Mother having been dead all along, the idea that Ted and Robin couldn’t be happy together either until some other woman bore Ted’s children is also gross.

In general, super sexist, and it’s not a twist when you directly contradict what you have told/shown your audience. It’s bad writing.

But with all that said, if the show had ended somewhere between Seasons 1-4 (with minor to major tweaks - *reluctantly salutes*), the planned ending would have been fine. At least, it would’ve been fine with regard to Ted/Robin (and Barney’s character). The tension between them was still there, they still had audience support, and it made sense that, after all that buildup, Ted’s kids would be hoping for some closure to his tumultuous relationship with their Aunt. The problem is that, in the show as written... Ted and Robin do get closure. Ted, just like Tracy, is able to let go of the love that has consumed him and arrested his romantic development for so long, and that is what finally opens him up to meeting the love of his life. His relationship with Robin, even the unrequited mess it became later, not only led him to the Mother, it made him ready for the Mother. When he shuts Robin down in the penultimate episode of the show, Ted closes the door on that chapter of his life. That’s the closure. That’s the resolution of the Ted/Robin tension.

And that’s a huge part of why the ending feels flaccid. They attempt to resurrect a dynamic that no longer holds any narrative weight - Robin pining after Ted in a happy relationship, lamenting what she’s lost, is not only something that we’ve seen before, it’s something we’ve seen Robin get over before. She didn’t realize “too late” what she had with Ted, or what she could have had. She had it, lost it, mourned it... then decided she didn’t want or need it again, and found something new with someone else. They wanted to throw the audience off the scent, but by killing all the tension between their endgame couple, and spending literal years building up relationships between other characters, they destroyed any momentum that that storyline had in the first place. They told a will-they/won’t-they story, and while there were moments where they subtly hinted that “they will”, more than half their text was dedicated to showing their audience, “no they won’t”.

In the Season 2 episode “Something Blue”, Barney hears that Ted and Robin have something to tell everyone. When he begs them to tell him, they give him a story piece by piece detailing what happened. With each part of the story he gets, Barney guesses how it ends. Every time he guesses, Ted smiles wryly and tells him, “the story’s not over”. This implies to Barney and the audience that each of Barney’s guesses is wrong, because he doesn’t have all the information yet.

Except... Barney does correctly guess the end of the story. He guesses that Ted and Robin broke up, Ted smiles wryly, says “the story’s not over”, and proceeds to continue to tell it, only for the story to, in fact, end with his and Robin’s breakup.

This plot is emblematic of the problem with the end of How I Met Your Mother. One of the biggest running themes of the show is that until a story is over, you can’t turn it into a narrative. You don’t have the full picture, you don’t know who the bad or good guy is, you don’t know what story you’re living. Barney doesn’t know what story he’s being told until it’s over - except he does. And because Ted isn’t finished telling the whole story, he implies to Barney that he’s wrong. He throws him off, so he can end the story on his own terms. That’s what the showrunners of HIMYM did, too. They wanted so badly to tell the story as they conceived it, but in order to keep that ending as a twist, they couldn’t telegraph it too obviously. This, to them, meant throwing the audience so far off the scent of their plan that they obscured their plan, that they deflated the central narrative, made it look like there was no way it would happen, because we were being made to look in another direction. No, we clearly didn’t have the whole story. But we had the story that was unfolding before us, one where Robin didn’t want Ted romantically anymore, one where Barney was trying so, so hard to be better, one where Ted needed to let go in order to be happy. And that story doesn’t feel complete when it ends the way that it does, because the ending we got is the end of the story we saw in Season 1.

The story we saw in Season 1 was of a man who hopelessly pined after a woman who loved him back, but wasn’t in a place to reciprocate the way he wanted. Years later, they reconnect and are finally able to make it work. That’s the story that HIMYM thought they were telling. But, because they never got cancelled and got free reign to tell this story for as long as they wanted, and because they didn’t want us to guess that darn twist, they gave us a whole whack of misdirections, plot threads, and character growth that ultimately gets nullified to make way for the ending of the “real” story. There is no momentum carrying us to the finale as planned, because the finale as planned was meant to be the ending to a much shorter tale.

Everything else was just filler.

#how I met your mother #himym #himym finale #himym meta #listen this essay is a rambly mess and I apologize for fucking nothing #this was meant to be my last meta of the decade but I forgot to finish it oops

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safflowerseason · 5 years

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(Part 3) 4) also, re: season 7 so far, and keep in mind I’m two episodes in, I don’t even recognise Dan, and to a lesser extent Amy, anymore. I don’t even feel I’m watching Veep anymore, not as it was set out for the first four seasons. Is Mandel known to be the devil or something? What in the frack was this vision of the characters meant to be - ‘evolved’? Or does he just hate them? 5) I hated what he did to the Selina and Amy relationship too. Does Mandel hate women? Is this a known thing?

These are all questions that we’ve been batting around on here since the finale aired in May (which is when I got on Tumblr, incidentally, because I had to take my Veep feelings somewhere.) To a certain degree, there’s never going to be a solid, black-and-white answer to any of them, really. You can read everything David Mandel ever said in public about his vision for Veep, you can close-read what the actors say on press tours…but it’s just not the same as being in the room. And certainly, it’s worth pointing out that all shows evolve, and they gain and lose fans through those changes. No show ends the exactly the same as when it started (although…some shows manage this evolution better than others.)

So, now that I’ve gotten my neutral disclaimer out of the way, I can get on with the fun ranting.

4) Dan is absolutely unrecognizable in S7 from how he appears even at the end of S6, barring little flashes here and there. While Amy’s general arc holds together slightly better than Dan’s, she still suffers from some major out of character moments in 7.02, as we all were just discussing recently. (Dan’s arc just makes no sense.) 7.02 is just rough on all counts. Unless you’re an avid Selina/Tom shipper in which case you probably got something out of it.

Also—and this is a general pet peeve of mine, as a California native—the episode is supposd to take place in Colorado and yet was so clearly filmed in Southern California (they posted a ton of pictures from the ranch where they filmed). Like, there are parts of California that resemble Colorado, but you have to go a little further than Malibu to get there. (I have the same beef with Parks and Rec. It’s so obviously not Indiana.)

Mostly, what it all boils down to is bad writing. I don’t care if Mandel thought Dan and Amy would never work as a couple. That’s fine. That’s a legitimate opinion. Run your show the way you want, dude. What I do care about is bad writing. It is bad writing when in 7.01, Amy seems intent on having the baby without Dan, and then in 7.02, suddenly Amy wants to pitch Dan a white-picket fences vision of domestic stability that neither of them have ever been particularly interested in. Sex-Psychopath Dan is bad writing because it completely contradicts everything we know about the character even taking S6 into consideration. The Dan we see in S7 would have slept with Leigh Patterson in S4 just because she was young and there and he is apparently a sex-addict, hahahaha, when of course S4 Dan would never be caught dead in the sexual proximity of a nineteen year old he theoretically works with. And yes, of course, characters can change. But you have to show that change, which they do not.

As for whether Mandel is the devil, (lol)…I think he was just very intent on doing the version of the show he saw in his head, and did not feel very obligated to try and replicate the show that Armando Iannucci had built. He had a completely different sensibility as an artist. I wrote a longer post somewhere on my blog about the differences in their approaches, if you’re interested, but ultimately I think what happened is that two very different universes got mashed together. Mandel didn’t hate the characters…he just thought they were all monsters and that was the point.

Also, two things happened the show couldn’t get away from, for obvious reasons: Trump was elected and the show was on an extended hiatus for 2017 and most of 2018 due to JLD’s cancer diagnosis. In the interim, all of America watched the government begin to melt in real time on Twitter. As a result, David Mandel rebooted the original ending for the show, in order to better capture this new moment in American politics (how effectively he did so is obviously up for debate.) The creative team and the cast were all fairly open about how dramatically Trumpian politics shaped their approach to the final season. So basically Trump is the short-answer reason to why a ton of plot threads get dropped between S6 and S7. I am 99% percent sure that the original plan was for Amy to have the baby before the hiatus and the resulting reboot. (Although at the same time, I do not think Dan and Amy would have gotten a very satisfying ending under Mandel. He also posted some pre-reboot snippets of the original outline for the finale, which have hinted that quite a few things did not change…for example, it seems that BKD was always doomed to be a one-episode plot device designed to get everyone back on Selina’s team, which is stupid.)

5) As for Mandel’s writing of female characters, I feel more comfortable speaking definitively here because in this case, it doesn’t matter what they were thinking in the room, but how it came across on the page and on the screen. Mandel obviously would say he doesn’t hate women, but he’s seems like one of those “liberal” white guys who has a lot of sh*t to work through regarding his own assumptions about women and femininity. He turned Selina into this misogynistic sociopath who abuses every woman in her sight with extremely gendered language, and he consistently punished Amy the character explicitly for not being hot enough or quiet enough or acquiescent enough for a woman. Like, the show always made fun of Mike for being dumb. It did not always make fun of Amy for being ugly and old. Moreover, Mandel/the show basically implies that Amy is a failure as a woman because she’s not maternal and also old and ugly, so she never got to be a mother and she never got to be with the man she truly loved. (sorry, Bill.) (Um, also, the audience has eyes? Anna Chlumsky is neither old nor ugly.)

I find it plausible that Amy and Selina’s relationship deteriorates over time…there is a subtle professional Dan/Amy/Selina triangle at work in S1-S4, and as Amy gets older and starts to figure out what she really wants from her life (and if Dan were the one she was trying to figure it out with), I don’t think Iannucci-Selina would react very well to it. (She would never be as openly abusive as S7 Selina, but I can’t imagine she’d be thrilled if Amy got pregnant just in time for her reelection campaign.) The show also makes it clear that Selina has an extremely complicated relationship with women and feminism, not to mention the fact that Amy herself is not particularly confident in her own body.

However…there were lots of ways to explore those complex character fault-lines without Selina abusing Amy constantly. She tries to sell her to Leon! Part of it is a complete lack of nuance and part of it is just plain old sexism.

Veep and the sexism of its later years has also been a pretty big discussion topic within the Veep Tumblr community, and you’ll definitely find posts on it if you poke around more closely (my blog, and also @thebookofmaev has written a lot about it as well.)

#veep season seven #rip dan egan #veep and politics #veep and sexism

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pan-xichen · 7 years

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What The Heckin Heck Is Gonna Happen To Keith: a meta I guess

OKAY SO I, like every other Keith stan, am wondering what the heck they’re gonna do with Keith. Post s4 he is no longer a paladin and is a member of the Blade of Marmora, but due to the events of the finale I’m still unsure as to how long that will last. Will the team find out he almost sacrificed himself for them without them knowing? Also something to note: Voltron has not used its sword (I think I’m sorry if I forgot I haven’t watched the season since the day it came out lmao) since Keith has stopped being a paladin. The fact that the sword is basically Voltron’s signature weapon leads me to believe that Keith very likely will end up as a paladin again (unless they did form it without him I can’t honestly remember for sure), but then he’d no longer be able to work with the Blade of Marmora, and one of the current paladins would have to lose their position for Keith to return to a lion.

The scenarios I could see happening are:

- Keith somehow becomes the leader of the Blade of Marmora and does not return to being a paladin

-Keith does return to being a paladin, causing either Allura or Shiro to not be a paladin anymore and him to likely have to leave the Blade

- Keith and Shiro co-pilot the black lion when he is not off on missions for the Blade

- the extra lion in the carving of Voltron in s3 ends up becoming Keith’s new lion, forming a powerful extra but non-essential part of Voltron meaning it won’t hurt the team if he has to go off on Marmora missions from time to time

- the extra lion calls to Allura and Lance returns to the blue lion, allowing Keith to return to Red and Shiro to remain the black paladin (probably also meaning that Keith can no longer run off with the Blade of Marmora)

- the extra lion wants Shiro as its paladin and Keith returns to being the black paladin (less grumpily now that he knows Shiro still has a lion)

(I’m gonna put the rest of this under a cut because it accidentally became 7000 words long oops)

Out of all of these outcomes I have a feeling that the writers will end up going for something that doesn’t make season 3/4′s development for Keith obsolete while at the same time allowing him to still contribute to the story directly. I personally can see scenarios three and four being the most plausible because they would allow for more aspects of his character to be present (blade and paladin) instead of eliminating one or the other. Although, the first one is definitely plausible in terms of Keith’s character and could even be combined with number four. We see him demonstrate time and again that he is a natural leader, despite not believing himself worthy to be one. I do feel as though eventually he will end up (willingly, this time) in a leadership role again after acknowledging that he is worthy of that position.

Scenario three would however feel like they’re just putting him back in for the sake of having him in and likely not really be meaningful (kinda like having Shiro come back so soon screwed up the story a bit for them because they planned to have him gone for much longer), as much as I like the idea of Keith and Shiro as co-leaders. That doesn’t necessarily mean though that they couldn’t be if they were not both the black paladins. I’ve seen a lot of theory about that extra lion in the Voltron carving at the beginning of season 3 being the white lion, which has been an actual canon thing in the past reincarnations of the series. Most of these theories involve Shiro as the white paladin, which I really do like but it feels like he really is meant to pilot Black (even if this might not actually be Shiro at the moment). His struggle to break her from Zarkon’s control was a great plot point from season 2 and both of them starting to heal from their respective trauma together would make for a nice aspect of Shiro’s character arc.

You do also have that Keith was bonded closely enough with Red to have her actually fly out into the middle of space and rescue him, and almost destroy an entire base to save his life. I love Keith as the red paladin, but if the writers still wanted to have him as an active member of the BOM it wouldn’t make much sense to put him back as the literal right arm of Voltron unless the lion switching is a thing that could happen more than once, (Lance moving back to Blue and Keith to Red but when Keith isn’t around Lance pilots Red and Allura pilots Blue) but that would be weird because they’ve put extra emphasis in the past on how important a paladin’s bond with their lion is, and having them be able to do this swap out thing all the time makes that point kinda meaningless. I think maybe the reason why Keith was able to connect with Red from so far away and have her respond when he was in danger might be the same reason why he could feel the blue lion’s energy months before Lance was even there to awaken her, and how he could pilot the black lion in that moment of desperation to save Shiro in s2 ep1. He’s connected to all of the lions in a strange way-- whether the answer to that is simply “he’s an alien” or there’s something else there, (which is what I suspect) remains to be seen, but I believe that his strong bond with Red may have been due to his connection with all of the lions. It still makes me kinda sad to see him not be her paladin anymore because he totally fits as the ‘guardian spirit of fire’, but as of right now the solution to the dilemma of “where are they gonna put keith without cutting him out of the main cast like they did in s4″ is a bit of a narrative corner the writers have backed themselves into that doesn’t logically involve him going back to being the red paladin without sacrificing the new development of him as a Blade of Marmora.

That being said, as much as I like white paladin Shiro (or whatever colour this hypothetical extra lion could be), having Keith be the white paladin would make more sense in my opinion. Voltron already has all of its essential components with five lions, but perhaps an extra lion would turn into a kind of upgrade for the robot. With the lore of the white lion from previous reboots, it might make sense to have that lion allow Voltron to create its own wormholes or even tear into other realities to pass through them, but maybe it just amplifies the robot’s powers. This would give Keith a place on the team while allowing him to still go off on Marmora missions if he is needed with them and not automatically jeopardize the team’s ability to form Voltron. It would also make for an interesting character development in him, as I imagine him seeing that Voltron can still be formed without him might make him feel less needed, but learning that his lion allows Voltron to do more than it could with only five would lift his spirit and make him feel like he belongs again. Maybe it could even include that the black and white paladins were meant to be co-leaders before something happened to the white lion, allowing both Keith and Shiro to donate their strengths as leaders to each other and cancel out some of their weaknesses (Shiro’s ability to remain level-headed under pressure and more diplomatic tendencies mixed with Keith’s passion and quick, creative thinking both at the head of Voltron would make the team an even more unstoppable force and I will fight anyone on this I could write a whole post dedicated to why Keith and Shiro as co-leaders would be beneficial and maybe even crucial to team Voltron’s success).

Technically I could end this here but I have a hypothetical scenario on how Keith becoming the paladin of the extra lion could go down so here have a pseudo-fic:

Keith’s near-death in season four is only foreshadowing to him actually dying... sort of. In the next season, Keith really does sacrifice himself for the greater good, allowing the team to succeed in their mission and deal a significant blow to the Galra empire. Before the battle during which he dies, they discover that there was a sixth lion initially built, but never used, as when it gained sentience it refused to awaken for any paladin. Perhaps this other lion foresaw the events that kickstarted the war with the Galra in the first place, and wanted no part in it, or maybe even wanted to avoid the pain of losing a paladin it knew was going to die. So it refused to function, maybe even flying away to some remote place in the universe (or even a different reality) to wait until its true paladin would arrive. The paladins find the white lion, but predictably it refuses to awaken for anyone-- that is, anyone who is present. Keith is off on another mission for the Blade when they find the lion.

Keith has been having strange dreams about the lion, not knowing exactly what it is. The lion has been trying to communicate with him, but to no avail. His own personal turmoil and lack of self-worth are clogging his thoughts, making it difficult for the white lion to reach him. The lion is brought to the castleship to prevent the Galra from finding it, and they start trying to do literally anything they can to wake it up, but the lion remains silent. It won’t even communicate with the other lions, as without a paladin and after having been gone for so long, it feels as though it doesn’t have the right to do so. Similarly to Keith, who feels as though he has no place on team Voltron.

In the last few episodes of the season, everyone goes into some epic battle again. Keith sacrifices himself so that Voltron can be victorious in a similar way to his near-sacrifice in season four, except the team knows what he’s doing this time. Shiro freezes up when they realize Keith is gone, before screaming and practically rampaging with his lion, cutting down hundreds of enemy ships at once. The white lion roars in frustration, sensing the death of a paladin it never got to bond with, and decides “nope, fuck you, you’re alive”. It launches itself out of the castle, collecting Keith’s broken body from where it’s floating out in space. The initial explosion didn’t end up killing Keith, but it did damage his suit, meaning he could no longer breathe. The lion shows up and uses its own pure quintessence to revive him. The process turns Keith’s hair white, and his irises a golden yellow, but does not corrupt him in the way that Zarkon was, due to the quintessence being pure. He is essentially reborn, like team Voltron’s very own phoenix.

The loss of Keith has caused the team to get distracted from their goal in their distress, and they’re fighting a losing battle. The white lion suddenly springs up out of nowhere and joins the fray, confusing everyone as they have no idea who is piloting the lion. They win the battle and all return to safety, practically jumping out of their lions and crowding around the white one to see who this mysterious new paladin is. Shiro is lingering behind everyone but still trying to show interest. Everyone has this irrational hope at the back of their minds that somehow it’s Keith, and he didn’t really die, even though they watched his craft explode. A slender figure clad in white paladin armor steps out of the lion, still wearing their helmet. Everyone is holding their breath as the figure slowly approaches them and moves to remove their helmet. Nobody recognizes him at first now that his hair is white and his eyes are yellow, until Shiro finally looks up from where he’d been somberly looking down and says “Keith?” in the smallest, quietest voice he’s ever had. Keith smiles softly as he’s recognized and everyone runs to group hug him. As the others pull away, leaving Keith and Shiro still holding each other, the scene fades out.

#this meta accidentally has sheith undertones because it's me of course it does #but yeah this is my speculation on what might happen with keith and how they'll keep him as a main character #voltron #vld s4 #keith kogane #takashi shirogane #i'm gonna tag this as sheith just in case someone complains lmao #sheith

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shefollowedfires · 7 years

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In Defense of a Death Wish: Abby Griffin

(TW: Suicide, Depression) Listen, I was as shocked as all of you when Abby “Let’s Call It Hope” Griffin asked Marcus Kane to let her die. It came out of left field. It had JRoth’s brand of Shock Value™ written all over it. But... was it OOC? I honestly don’t think so. In fact, it’s my personal opinion that it might be the most refreshing evidence of character development (and, god forbid, an actual arc) Paige Turco has gotten to play with in far too long. Now, I gotta put a disclaimer, here - it makes me extremely uncomfortable to agree with, let alone defend the decisions this show makes for its characters, especially Abby. This season in particular was excruciating to watch as the integrity of her character was repeatedly brutalized. So, no, I’m not going to argue that I trust the writers, per se. And I’m definitely not going to argue that this was their plan all along. What I will argue is that they did, actually, piece it together with the help of a sleeping giant they found amid the landscape of Abby’s character: Just because she can see the light doesn’t mean she doesn’t know the darkness.

She’s often billed (sometimes by the actors themselves) as “the constant”, the one who steadfastly clings to her values and therefore anchors the rest of the characters in their struggles to find their own. But what I, personally, love most about Abby is that all of these romantic notions she preaches, such as her faith in humanity - they’re earned. They’re not flimsy declarations borne out of ignorance. They have weight because she has gone through her own struggle, dug deep into the worst of herself, and then had the courage to challenge it and pull herself back up. But my god, as a stubborn idealist myself, I can tell you - that shit is exhausting. There isn’t a whole lot to support a positive belief system in our world, let alone a world where apocalypse and the literal end of humanity are frequently the order of the day. So it’s (understandably) the rational choice to be a cynic instead - leaving people like Abby to be the minority. Being an idealist is lonely as shit, y’all - it takes an unfair degree of stamina to uphold, which I don’t doubt that Abby has. But having her ideals, her vision of the future, constantly challenged... you can’t tell me that hasn’t taken its toll. Here’s why: Abby “Hope is Everything” Griffin? She can be pretty fucking bleak. In 1x05, after the Culling has been carried out - she’s been alone in her cell, has had time to think, and... she’s come to the conclusion that maybe the gift of another chance would be wasted on them:

Then, perhaps most strikingly, we see this come up again in 2x13; where she’s come face to face with every sin she’s ever committed and the repercussions they’ve had on the next generation. She’s gotten a taste of what her legacy might be, and she’s not sure she wants it:

The heartbreaking thing about this episode (okay, one of many) is that if they’d just stopped with hers and Marcus’ miraculous rescue, she might have taken that as a sign that her faith was well-placed after all. But, unfortunately, this is The 100, so that lasts about a hot second before...

Sigh. Whatever faith she had in the goodness of humanity is run through the damn shredder, with her being directly exposed to the extreme cruelty mankind is capable of - from both sides - for the sake of survival. Season 3 is a little kinder to her, in this respect - albeit, largely because she just... wasn’t.... used.... I’m not bitter. But! Those three months of peace did her a lot of good. Not to mention she’s had Marcus by her side to be a source of strength for her that she didn’t have before - this is so important. And not only does he support her and take care of her - he’s slowly started adopting her beliefs. She has a fellow idealist! She’s rejuvenated by this enough to be able to face the situations with both Pike and Jaha, her own people (and even her daughter, arguably) turning against her, and still be a pillar of encouragement for others. But then. She faces losing Marcus, her support. And suddenly the burden of being the one to “show them the way out of the dark” is hers alone - the weight of which she doesn’t resent for a second, but... that doesn’t make it any lighter?? And she’s been here before, but she’s been through so much more since the last time, and.... she’s starting to lose steam. So, we get this:

And like, Marcus ends up surviving, and he loves her, and all is well - but again, it’s for a hot fucking second, this time before she’s subjected to some of the worst of Jaha’s manipulations to get her to take the chip. From there, we all know the atrocities that she and everyone else were forced to do under ALIE’s control, and we know how much pain she was in when she woke up, but... I’m not going to argue that as being connected to my case here bc that’s just... yaknow... a natural response to the situation. So we’re just gonna go ahead and skip to S4 - because while yes, everyone was angsting hard, the show did make a point of showing that it might be weighing a little more heavily on Abby:

”We focus on what comes next,” Marcus says, reassuring her. And what, exactly, comes next? There is nothing more straining to an idealist than being forced to reduce their expectations. Back in S1, Abby might have had a vision of the future where humanity thrived, working together towards progress and a better world than the one they’d said goodbye to a near-century earlier. She might have nurtured prayers that love would finally win, that even the severity of life on the Ark would be a distant memory amongst the freedom to flourish that they’d find on the ground. They’d learn from their mistakes, and as early as to be within her own lifetime, she’d get to see the rise of the absolute best of humanity. Instead, she finds herself tasked with committing imitations of some of the worst things she’s found mankind to be capable of. The things that she herself has been victim to. The things that have chipped away at her spirit - she’s now doing them to herself. So what is her vision of the future now?

Instead of a bright, brilliant, innovative future for humanity to thrive in... she just wants to be able to take her next breath. Talk about shrinking down. This is a management of expectations that everyone this season has had to do, but once again, it weighs a little bit more heavily on Abby, because "your humanity is your greatest strength” - it’s literally the most fundamental part of her character, and she’s being forced to put it aside just to get to tomorrow. All while she’s in a strange lab on a strange island miles from anything familiar, working to accomplish an impossible scientific feat to literally save all of mankind. And she has brain damage. But because of the pressure of all of the above, she doesn’t feel like she has the time or energy to deal with it; and in pushing forward, she isolates herself from those who might have been a support to her. The task at hand, ethically-ambiguous as it is, becomes the only thing that matters, above even minimal self-care like, yaknow, sleeping. Because of The Cause™. And then she starts saying shit like this:

Like..... when Clarke “I Am Become Death” Griffin is like “EASY THERE, EDGELORD”...... you know things are bad. But then, after all of her sacrifice - the all-important Cause turns out to be a loss. The serum doesn’t work. An innocent man dies horrifically. She’s been completely betrayed by her goal. And then The Cause brings death to hang low over her daughter’s life - and Abby suddenly breaks. So, too, does her faith in the future. Her faith in humanity. Her faith in herself. What does she have left? With 4x11 comes an opportunity for her to come back to herself; if she can rescue Marcus, she can “do better than you did yesterday”. She can give a future to the innocent Grounders they’d selfishly locked out. Maybe there’s still peace to be found between all their peoples. Maybe doing the right thing is still possible. Only.... doing the right thing ends up sending 364 people to their deaths. Now, at this point, I’m gonna come back to the brain damage and just say that I absolutely think it was a huge fucking part of why she wanted to sacrifice herself. Why would she waste a spot if she’s only going to die in a few weeks anyway? Only - at the beginning of 4x12, long before Abby makes her decision, Raven tells her that death isn’t imminent, after all. There’s a cure. But Abby isn’t interested in pursuing it; still keeps Marcus in the dark about it. She sends her daughter out on a doomed mission, and her goodbye feels final. This is where we finally arrive at The Scene. If you trace back through all of the examples I’ve laid out, here, the language Abby uses suddenly makes sense: - “Is it right, Marcus?” - “The things I let myself do in that lab...” - Why “we will find our humanity again” wasn’t enough This isn’t the language of someone nobly covering up their illness - this is a very raw, very honest Abby. And the line that strikes me hardest is this:

This, to me, is the key to this shocking, “out of the blue” decision. Being Abby Griffin used to mean something; but the continual sacrifice of her humanity, her most core value, has taken its toll. She doesn’t know how to steer herself without it. She doesn’t know where she’s even headed, and if she really wants to go there. She’s fucking tired. And even if it does end up being a positive future, she has thoroughly convinced herself over the course of four seasons that she really doesn’t deserve to see it. But. There’s so much more to Abby than disillusionment - as I know you’ve quietly been arguing at me in your head while reading this post. Trust me, I hear you. Our girl is resilient as fuck. She always picks herself back up. And she’s going to do it again - but now that she’s hit rock bottom, it might take her a little while longer. And frankly, I do actually hope it’s a primary thread in her S5 arc?? I’m excited to see that journey play out as the quest to rebuild humanity gets a fresh start. Its already been suggested that S5 is going to center around a theme of whether or not humanity deserves that chance; and I would be so fucking thrilled if Abby got to be at the heart of that, from the perspective of someone who was once a believer who now needs to have her old faith restored. I’m excited to see Marcus be instrumental in that, swapping roles to take up the mantle of being the idealist in that relationship. I’m excited to see how it shapes her relationship with Clarke, who has now spent years nurturing hope for the sake of a “daughter” of her own. I’m excited to see other people support her the way she’s supported them. It’s going to be different. It’s going to be challenging. It’s going to be beautiful. We’re going to get to watch Abby Griffin come back to life.

#long post is LONG #but there are gifs!#does this even make sense #idek anymore #but i've been sitting on these feelings since 4x12 aired and they needed to come out #abby griffin #the 100 meta #the 100 #kabby #meta #kabby meta #kane x abby #paige turco

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moonlitgleek · 7 years

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Can you tell me why do you enjoy Glee? I'm not one of those who hate on the show for being LGBT-friendly, it's just that the characters are so inconsistent, the pairings are often forced and the storylines can be cringeworthy to really bad. Not that there isn't talent on the cast. I liked the earlier seasons, but I thought it became so nonsense later on... Maybe I'm not watching the way it should be watched, idk...

I’ve been sitting on a similar message for months now, trying to figure out how to respond. The problem with these messages that always leave me in a bind is that I do not think my answer would be really satisfactory to you. We all respond to media in different ways, have our own lines in the sand as to how much we can suspend our belief, like different things, etc. So I don’t know if I can really give you a different perspective on the show or anything; all I can offer is my own viewing experience.

I did not like the first season of Glee. I almost quit so many times during that first season but I was always pulled back and convinced to give the show another chance. Every time I planned to stop, a magical moment would happen - Mercedes singing I Am Beautiful, Burt telling Kurt that his job was to be himself and Burt’s job was to love him no matter what, the kids pulling a setlist out of thin air as Will listened and cried, the Glee club singing Lean on Me to Finn and a pregnant Quinn, Quinn giving birth to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody, to name a few - and I’d be so moved that I’d decide to stick it out with the show for a little while longer. That’s not to say the first season was necessarily bad, I just did not enjoy it. The Will\Sue rivalry did not sustain the season on its own, I hated the Will\Teri story, I did not think the team gelled, and I wasn’t pulled by any of the characters.

Come season 2, things changed. I fell in love with the characters. My starting point in any show is the characters - if I can’t even like the characters, I can not go on watching even if the story is phenomenal. Season 2 got me interested in these characters as people, really delved into the characterization of the students and their stories which was a million time more interesting than Will, Teri and Sue. They introduced my favorite character, the writing got tighter, and they did a marvelous job with Kurt’s and Santana’s arcs. This was the season that cemented my love for Glee, aided by how much I started relating to these characters. I started to watch the show between seasons 3 and 4 when I was fresh out of college and feeling pressured to make it, scared that my academic success would not translate to a good career “in the real world” or that I just was not enough. So I understood these characters and their struggles. I saw my own fears in theirs. I related to them and rooted for them.

Now, I know that lots of people did not like the latter seasons but honestly, seasons 4 and 5 are my absolute favorites in this series. I genuinely enjoyed them despite some glaring problems. See, I watched Glee with my eyes wide open. I knew its problems and was infuriated by some of them: storylines that didn’t really go anywhere, stories that were set up perfectly but wrapped up sloppily, some obvious pace issues, big name guest stars that tended to become a plot black hole - if a big name guest star appeared, often the plotlines of the regulars got shelved in favor of showcasing said guest star - the writing even became reactionary at one point as some shippers took to social media to hound the writers over their ships, and Ryan responded by making a point through the writing. I saw all of that.But while I admit that there were issues worthy of criticism in Glee, I also think that there came a point where it became “cool” to disparage the show, and that fed to a widespread feeling of negativity towards it. I’d see someone lamenting how Glee stopped being silly and fun and now took itself too seriously but when the show did a cracky ridiculous episode like the ones it used to do in earlier seasons, it was criticized for being too silly and not taking its audience seriously. The writers got flayed for doing PSA episodes and I’d read think pieces on how they should employ subtle storytelling and not throw their themes in our face, but when they did so with their story about race - one of the subtlest and longest running storylines - it largely got dismissed because people simply did not notice it since Glee did not wave a red flag saying “this is a race story” (though honestly, when it did explicitly tell us it’s a race story in Asian F, some still failed to understand that yes, this is about race.) At one point, there was no winning for the show, everything was criticized.

One of my favorite things about Glee, though, is that it managed to sell me on things I thought I’d never accept and made me love characters that I wasn’t a big fan of even four and five seasons in. For the love of god, Glee somehow managed to make me really care about Dave freaking Karofsky which is a damn feat. Like, Finn and Santana were two characters that I’ve always struggled with. I outright disliked and resented Finn at the end of season 3, and then season 4 happened and my god, did I fall in love with Finn - that goofy, stubborn, supportive kid who stepped up, learned from his mistakes and became a rock to the younger generation. Santana was just intriguing in that season and she drew me in in a way that she hadn’t done before. Season 4 had its problems, but it’s the season that genuinely made me so attached to Glee. Blaine was a bloody revelation and a joy to watch. Sam somehow managed to steal my heart. Tina had really good material that I enjoyed to death to make up for three seasons of sidelining. The NND had a very rough start and the show struggled in the beginning to give the newbies distinguishing characterization that did not echo the graduated characters’ but once they found their groove, they became a team that I loved with all my heart, one that I enjoyed seeing interact far more than I ever did the previous team. Season 4 was primarily about friendships and support, it allowed the characters to fly their nerd flags and they felt like real teenagers in their silliness. And hey, very little Will. That was always a plus.

While season 5 was heavily impacted by Cory’s death, and despite how that forced the writers to throw away their plans for the season which unfortunately led to some storylines getting axed, I found it a solid season with some excellent episodes that capitalized and improved on the relationships they set in season 4, and that did a much, much better job with its pacing. I find it admirable that they managed such a good season after a heavy personal and professional loss as Cory’s death.

As for characterization, I disagree that it was inconsistent. Obviously I have no idea which characters you have in mind but the two characters I often saw this criticism directed at are Blaine and Tina, and I just don’t agree. The bones of Blaine and Tina’s later characterization are laid in seasons 2 and 3 if one looks for them, and can we really call them inconsistent when they were only truly fleshed out in the same season that prompted people to criticize their characterization? Because both characters were underdeveloped in earlier seasons. Butcharacters are constantly developing and I can’t expect the characters to be the same four or five seasons in as they were in season 1. As long as the change falls in line with previous storylines or expands in them in a non-contradictory way, then it’s not inconsistent. That’s not to say that I enjoyed every bit of characterization from every character (I was very vocal in my dislike for s4!Rachel’s characterization), but just because I did not enjoy it does not necessarily mean that it was inconsistent. That’s a line I had to find while watching.

But it all comes down really to the fact that I still found magic in Glee despite its problems. I found as much joy in On Our Way as I did in Ride Wit Me and as much beauty in If I Were A Boy as in I Am Beautiful. NND were even more important to me than OND were, Blam meant the world to me, as did Blaine’s struggle with his insecurities, Kitty’s journey, Jake’s anger, Ryder’s ridiculousness, Marley’s steadiness, Unique’s bravery, Rachel’s stumbling, Tina’s resentment, it all meant something to me. I loved these characters and was invested in their happiness and their success. I started watching Glee for the story of these underdogs standing up to the world around them and picking themselves up after they were knocked down again and again, I stayed for the sense of community and support they built against all odds which is something the show never lost, and I ended it with them, with Rachel Berry accepting that Tony, with Kurt and Blaine happily married with a baby on the way, with Mercedes successful and fulfilled. It ended with a show of friendship as these kids who stuck by each other through thick and thin gathered to support one of their own, and with that weird, crazy, dysfunctional, flawed group of people coming together to honor the person who made Mckinley just a little bit brighter for many of them. Perhaps he never got the chance to walk these halls as a teacher, or to become the teacher that future Mckinley students deserved, but he still left a legacy behind.

Moments like these are why I enjoyed Glee, and why, despite all of its problems, it remains one of few shows that touched me the most.

#Anon asks #ask box #glee

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kiss-my-freckle · 5 years

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Season 7

Rederina and Keenler baby.

No one questions why the Russians haven’t been tracking Masha Rostova ever since her “reveal” in season two. She sat inside that Russian Embassy and said it out of her own mouth that she’s the daughter of Katarina Rostova. You think they’re tracking her now? Uhm, no. The Russians truly don’t give a fuck about Masha Rostova. If they don’t give a fuck about Masha Rostova, why on earth would they give a fuck about her daughter? Uhm, they don’t. And the dialogue supports this. Every mention of risk has nothing to do with Katarina’s enemies and everything to do with Katarina herself. Every mention of potential target has nothing to do with Masha and everything to do with Agnes herself.

NOTHING to do with their enemies or the Russians.

Liz: I was supposed to meet with Scottie tonight and figure out a transition plan for me to bring Agnes home. The only reason I’m not with her is because I thought figuring out who you really were would put her in harm’s way. Now I know it won’t. But in trying to find out if you were the devil, I learned my mother was. That tape they played at your trial? She destroyed my father. She’s the reason he ran. I shot him, but she’s responsible for his death. Red: Your mother can’t hurt you. Liz: Because she’s dead? The Russians don’t seem to think so. When Ressler was trying to help me find out who you were, he went looking for her and was confronted by the KGB about what he found out. What if I bring Agnes back and they’re right - and she’s alive and she finds us?

EVERYTHING to do with Katarina herself.

Red: Your mother was not as bad as - I understand why you might think she was, but she wasn’t. She was a young woman trying to make sense of a world that was falling apart around her. She was on one side of an unbridgeable divide. Your father was on the other. And you were in between. Over the years, your mother’s legend has grown. Mythic spy. Bloodless turncoat. In the process, people forgot the person behind the legend, but I haven’t. If she were here, I’m sure she’d tell you she made so many mistakes. She was scared and uncertain and just trying to do the best she could. Bring Agnes home, Elizabeth. Liz: If there’s any risk - Red: There isn’t. Bring her home.

That’s why Liz fears her own MOTHER.

Liz: But in trying to find out if YOU were the devil, I learned MY MOTHER was.

Liz: What if I bring Agnes back and they’re right - and SHE'S alive and SHE finds us?

And why Red CALMS those fears.

Red: YOUR MOTHER can’t hurt YOU.”

Red: YOUR MOTHER was not as BAD as - I understand why you might think SHE was, but SHE wasn’t.

NOTHING to do with their enemies or the Russians.

Stranger: And she believed him? Red: She did. So much so that she’s decided IT'S SAFE to bring her daughter home.

Red: I want THIS done before Masha’s daughter comes home.

And the danger isn’t to Masha. It’s to AGNES.

“Safe to bring HER DAUGHTER home.”

"Done before MASHA'S DAUGHTER comes home.”

“What if I bring AGNES back ...”

“Bring AGNES home, Elizabeth. If there’s any risk - “

If risk were about Katarina’s enemies or the Russians, both daughter and granddaughter would be in danger. Focus is to Agnes herself. Because it has EVERYTHING to do with “Katarina.” Red being the REAL Katarina. And Ilya being IMPOSTER Katarina. Who they were vs who they are.

What Liz believes: Red is ILYA, not A DANGER to Agnes.

Liz: I know YOU’RE ILYA and the incredible thing you did TO PROTECT my mother, TO PROTECT me.

Liz: I thought figuring out who YOU really were WOULD put her in HARM’S WAY. Now I know IT WON'T.

Liz: Well, it’s only because I finally know. I know WHO YOU ARE. I know that YOU CARE. I know that I’M SAFE.

Stranger: And she believed him? Red: She did. So much so that she’s decided IT'S SAFE to bring HER DAUGHTER home.

Red: I want THIS done before MASHA’S DAUGHTER comes home.

Liz: YOU’RE not gonna stay for dinner? Red: And intrude on your mother-daughter reunion? I don’t think so. And WE NEED TO BE someplace.

Red is the REAL Katarina: NOT a danger to Agnes

The danger has NOTHING to do with Katarina’s enemies. The danger has NOTHING to do with the Russians. The danger has NOTHING to do with Katarina. The danger has EVERYTHING to do with Ilya.

Because a WOMAN is now a MAN. Because a MAN is now a WOMAN.

Imagine. Katarina calms Liz’s fears of HER MOTHER harming Agnes. Katarina heads to Paris to protect Agnes from ILYA. Katarina gets injected and kidnapped by ILYA. Katarina is now unable to protect Agnes from ILYA. Imagine. Liz doesn’t fear ILYA. Then ILYA comes to harm Agnes. Liz doesn’t fear HER MOTHER. Then an imposter of HER MOTHER comes to harm Agnes.

Red told Liz that HER MOTHER isn’t of danger to Agnes. Red didn’t tell Liz that an imposter of HER MOTHER is of danger to Agnes. And here SHE comes.

Dom made things worse by telling Liz that Red is Ilya. He’s not. Who is going to protect Liz and Agnes from her imposter mother when Liz no longer fears her real mother? Especially now that her real mother is laid up in the back of a van.

Two people needed to disappear - to become someone else. The truth of Katarina Rostova and Ilya Koslov.

Why Ilya is a danger to Agnes, but not to Masha.

Because Ilya Koslov is the biological father of Christopher Hargrave. Hilariuos too. Because Liz now believes Red is Ilya Koslov.

Tom Keen is no longer part of the story. Christopher Hargrave is. A child who died at the age of four. Scottie and Howard introduced. Ilya introduced. Richard Game introduced. That’s Christopher Hargrave’s past. We were already given Tom Keen’s past. This began in S2 when they introduced The Major. They continued to give us Tom Keen’s background up until his death in S5.

The timeline is there. Katarina saves Masha from her stepfather Constantin. Christopher finds out that Scottie is his mother. Masha finds out that Raymond is her biological father. Christopher assists his stepfather Howard into putting his mother in prison. He then comes back to life to save his mother from the death penalty, only to get stabbed to death on Masha's floor while investigating the truth of Masha’s mother. Masha puts her mother in prison, and she ends up facing the death penalty. Now Christopher's biological father is in story. The last precious piece of Christopher, is Agnes. That's why there always appeared to be a connection between Tom and Liz, perhaps even when they were kids. Their backgrounds being so similar. The mark, Liz's scar. Because both Katarina and Ilya were at the fire. That's why they brought us Rassvet and the idea of rebirth. For most people, baptism comes early. That would be Agnes.

Red warned Tom about it during Agnes’ christening back in S3.

Red: You have a child to raise, Tom. If you start asking questions, it will put her (Agnes) at risk, it will put you (Christopher) at risk.

Because Christopher is Ilya’s son. Red: Listen to me, Tom. Susan Hargrave has many secrets. Some of them concern you. If you want answers, you must conceal your true identity.

Because Christopher is Ilya’s son. One of Scottie’s secrets.

THAT is why Katarina (who is now Red) went to Paris. To PROTECT Agnes from Ilya (who is now Katarina). Agnes is in danger.

Remember Alexander Kirk’s arc?

Liz: What if we were talking about your father? What if you suddenly found him? Would you be able to walk away?

Here comes Tom Keen’s father. And what did Red say to Tom?

Tom: Except that you told me not to let Scottie Hargrave know that I am her son, that if I did I would never find the truth I’ve been looking for. What does that mean? Red: He’s dead, Tom. Tom: What truth? You knew my father.

Tom’s father is dead because he’s now Katarina.

Red: All that really matters is that you vanished off the face of the earth nearly 30 years ago, and yet here you are. Leave the past in the past, Tom. Nothing good will come from digging up secrets. Liz’s mother is dead because she’s now Raymond.

Red: You know that your parents loved you very much. And that’s the only truth that matters.

That's how S7 will be different from S4 with Alexander Kirk's arc. It's not about Ilya being Tom’s father, it's about Tom being Agnes’ father. He's not. Ressler is. That's why they've been pushing Ressler and Liz together a lot lately.

Tom introducing the danger of his biological father to Agnes. Agnes being saved by her biological father, Ressler.

#Rederina #current thoughts #The Blacklist #TBLTheories2018 #Keenler baby theory #Anti-Tom Keen #Anti-Keen2

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hawthornewhisperer · 7 years

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Hi! I'm new(ish) to the 100 fandom, and I was wondering if you know of metas on Bellamy and his journey of where he began and how far he's come? Thanks!

You know, I’m sure there are other metas out there, but I saw this and was like…man, that would be fun to write. So you did not ask for this, but here, let’s have a Bellamy Blake Retrospective. (Also hi, and welcome to the fandom! If you’re interested you can search my blog for bellarke meta, bellamy meta, and the 100 meta because I write a lot about Bellamy and I’m bad at tagging consistently but those are the tags I most likely used. And if anyone knows of other overarching Bellamy metas about his character so far, let me know!)

In a lot of respects, Bellamy Blake in 101 is nothing like he is as of 403. For one thing, his hair is a lot better now, and for another thing they seem to have settled on some consistent character beats instead of “idk, reckless bad guy?” Overall, I’d say there’s two facets of his personality that the show is interested in exploring, one internal and one external, and they touch on each theme in each season although they tend to switch back and forth between which one gets the main spotlight. Internally, it’s guilt: how does he cope with the things he’s done? How does he reconcile his sins with who he wants to be? Externally, it’s protecting those he loves: how far is too far? Does that limit exist?

There’s also a character trait that has existed since the pilot but that went dormant for a bit before resurfacing in season four: unflinching acceptance of the end. The line of his from the pilot that I am finding myself remembering a lot now that s4 is airing is if the air is toxic, we’re all dead anyway. Clarke wants to come up with a plan, but Bellamy surveys the options– open the door and die quickly, stay inside and die slowly– and chooses immediate death. It’s a dark moment, but it tells us a lot about him right off the bat.

If I go episode by episode we will be here all damn day, so I’m going to talk about him in terms of season-long arcs. Season One Bellamy was about his external “protective” quality and learning to expand his mission from “protect Octavia” to “protect the delinquents” with a couple of side quests into “forgiveness, is it for you?” and “wow Clarke’s hair is really pretty.”

The moment I want to bring your attention to is when Bellamy offered himself in place of Jasper, because not only was that our official confirmation that Bellamy has decided he’ll die for any of those kids (not just Octavia), but because it highlights something @metastation made me think about recently, which is that Bellamy sees his own life as a tool. He will do whatever it takes to keep them alive, and if that means dying, he’ll fucking do it. He was willing to die for Jasper in season one, just like he was willing to go on a suicide mission for the remaining delinquents in season two. He was originally ready to die for Octavia by getting on the dropship (remember: no one but Abby believed the ground was actually survivable) and by the end of the season, he’s ready to die for Jasper-- someone he suggested mercy killing at the start of it.

We also examine Bellamy’s guilt, mostly in relation to the culling, although that is not the prominent focus of the season. We learn that Bellamy sees himself as someone who hurts people and doesn’t deserve peace, and we see that the rebel in the first few episodes was really a facade. We find out that he feels each death deeply, and that he regrets the monster he thinks he has to be in order to protect people. (Notably, however, he regrets being that monster but he doesn’t reject being that monster outright, a character beat that they bring back in season three).

Season two is mostly an internal/guilt season for Bellamy, although you could argue that he tried to include the Mount Weather Resistance under his protection but ultimately he failed. It is treated as a given in season two that he will protect his people, and having to choose to sacrifice the Mount Weather Resistance is framed as sad but understandable (and directly linked to Octavia). But what Bellamy’s season two arc is really about is him trying to atone for the sins he committed during season one (the culling) by saving as many damn people as possible. He’s again willing to use his life as a bargaining chip, but it’s more than just the Mount Weather suicide mission– it’s going after Finn when he’s tied up by Tristan, it’s going against Kane to try and find the rest of the delinquents, it’s going down the mountain to save Mel, it’s trying to save Finn from the grounders, and it’s the Mount Weather suicide mission. Season two takes a thread that was established in season one– Bellamy will die for his people– and tries to tease it out as far as it will go, but it’s not really about broadening the definition of “people.” It’s about exploring the extent to which he is willing to risk his life in order to atone for what he’s done.

And then, season three shows up. And look, I suspect once this series is complete season three is basically gonna be my gasleak season where I pretend it doesn’t exist, because the show attempted to do some things with Bellamy’s character but for various reasons (mostly: editing choices and what I suspect was a hastily redone storyline to account for various behind-the-scenes things) none of it landed. However, we can say that while season two was a deep exploration of Bellamy’s guilt and the extent to which he’ll take it, season three was an exploration of his protective nature and the extent to which he would take that. And apparently: he’ll take that as far as it fucking goes.

Season three was also about the limits to his protective nature and his inability to broaden his definition of “my people” to include the grounders as a whole. At the end of season three we see this shifting, but it’s mostly left for season four to do the heavy lifting on that front. Season three also saw Bellamy resuming the mantle of monster that he tried so hard to shed in season one. He never wanted to hurt anyone-- not Jaha, not the people in the culling, not even Lincoln-- but he did because he thought he had to. The massacre in season three was, I suspect, a continuation of that; Bellamy kills people because he thinks it’s necessary, not because he enjoys it. It ties back to who we are and who we need to survive are two very different things, because who he is is actually someone who loves his people deeply and regrets every violent thing he’s ever done, but who he needs to be is a monster who will kill the army at their doorstep to keep his people safe. Not all of this really came through in the text, but I’m confident that this was roughly what they were going for with Bellamy’s character.

So now we’re into season four, and I think we’re going to be doing a reprise of his season two character beats where the internal focus takes precedence. We’ve had Kane straight out tell Bellamy how to handle his guilt, and when Jaha asked how many do you have to save to satisfy your guilt you could practically see Bellamy thinking “literally all of them.” We’re on another atonement journey, I suspect, and I don’t think we’ve seen the last of his regret.

We also had him sacrificing the lives of possibly 400 of his own people in order to save 25 slaves, most of whom were grounders. I suspect they’re expanding his definition of “my people” to “literally everyone left on the planet,” but we’re also only three episodes in so it’s hard to judge an entire season’s arc based on that. Still, I’m guessing that while this thread will be important it will be secondary to his guilt and quest for redemption. (You could probably also argue that season four is going to be about both those elements of his personality, but again, we’re only three episodes in so it’s tough to say at this point.)

However, I want to bring this back around full circle and remind you guys of his line in the pilot: if the air is toxic, we’re all dead anyway. While he’s changed in so many ways (and got rid of that hair gel, thank god), Bellamy is still the man he was in the pilot– if death is coming, he sees no point in messing around and trying to delay it by a few hours. And you guys, Bellamy doesn’t think they can survive this. That’s why he was willing to blow up the hydrogenerator; none of those people are going to survive anyway, so he might as well get a few home to their families while he still can. Death is coming; why fight it?

But you know what’s different? In the pilot, Clarke wanted to come up with a plan because any plan, no matter how ridiculous, is better than just opening the doors and dying because that’s how she handles uncertainty– with charts and graphs and maps and strategy. Bellamy overrules her in that episode and opens the door because fuck it, what’s the difference between dying now and dying of dehydration in three days? But now, he’s going along with her plan. He’s taking a trip to Farm Station to get a hydrogenerator he secretly believes they won’t ever need to use and he’s agreeing to let Clarke put him on a list of people she wants to save. He still thinks death is inevitable, but he’s no longer the callous guard from the pilot, opening the dropship door against her advice. He knows that in order to keep going, Clarke needs a plan. He knows that if she stops and just accepts that the end is coming she’ll crumple, and he doesn’t want that for her. (I’d say this applies to all his people in general because he doesn’t want to see anyone hurt, but it is particularly painful for him to see Clarke in any sort of distress so she’s the main focus for his “yeah, we’re definitely gonna live yep yep yep this is totally survivable” charade.)

So when you shove everything else his character has gone through aside– the grounder attack in season one, pulling the lever at Mount Weather in season two, losing Gina and being estranged from his sister in season three– this is what his character boils down to, and this is how he’s changed. When he arrived on the ground he was ready to die and he didn’t really care about anyone who wasn’t Octavia. He was kind of a dick to the woman who wanted a plan to save everyone because he saw no point in a charade and also those other lives weren’t his problem. He’s still ready to die, but now his love stretches to encompass hundreds of people. And when it comes the woman who wants a plan to save everyone, no matter how desperate it is, he’s willing to go to whatever length it takes to keep her going– even if in the end, he still believes they’re all going to die.

#thebonnielassofyvie #the 100 meta #bellamy meta #bellarke meta #just a lil' at the end #also this is kind of a mess #I rewrote it like five times trying to figure out what I wanted to say #and I still don't love it but w/e

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mittensmorgul · 7 years

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The State of the Dean

Round Two of the Great Meta Scavenger Hunt, aka the hold my beer meta challenge, invites us to rank either all the season premieres or all the season finale episodes according to whatever metric we choose. I originally had the notion that I’d write up something Very Serious about Dean’s association with family, and how that’s held him back, helped him move forward, or just how he’s grown over the years. But then I started throwing random cracky listicles directly at Lizbob and she pointed out that maybe instead of sending her season by season crack entries via the bubble message thingy, I should probably just post them here. This is my official entry, but I’ll be posting a(n even) crack(ier) entry, too (just for fun, not for points).

I could write a 12 (or 11 1/2) season long dissertation on the evolution of Dean’s feelings toward family and relationships, but that’s basically my blog. I’ve been informed that the entirety of a blog doesn’t qualify as a “listicle,” so I’ve chosen to select a very small snippet at the very end of each season finale to assess Dean’s state of mind season to season. Here we go!

(ranked as -/12, 1 being Dean’s personal best, and 12 being Dean’s personal worst)

1.22: Seeing as how he was unconscious in the back seat of the Impala and being rushed to the hospital, I think he was in a pretty grave state (hur hur grave). 7/12 just for the fact that he was literally unconscious and wouldn’t remember it anyway

2.22: On the surface, this seems like a VAST improvement over his state in 1.22. He’s walking upright and fully conscious, for one. He’d finally gotten revenge on the demon who’d killed his mother. He got to see John escape from Hell and head off toward, theoretically, heaven. Not everything was hunky-dory, of course. They’d managed to slam the Hellgate shut again, but not before a bunch of other demons escaped into the world. Oops? Oh, and there was the small matter involving the sale of his soul to hell and the fact he’s only got one year to live. Kinda problematic there, Dean. 3/12 (just for the Major Win Factor of killing Yellow Eyes. He’ll push the rest down until he can’t ignore it any longer, but for the time being it was a win)

3.16: The writer’s strike shortened season ended on a particularly low note for Dean. Torn apart by hellhounds and consigned to hell. Yes. A “low note” indeed. 12/12 i mean really how does it get worse than this?

4.22: Good news: Dean’s not in hell. Bad news: Hell came to Earth. That’s right, Lucifer’s on the loose. Also notable because of the MAJOR rift between Sam and Dean, trust issues, demon blood addiction, and hubris, basically. It’s not all bad, because at least Dean’s got a friend (oops until he’s blown up, but it’s okay. Cas will be fine in a day or two...) 9/12 LUCIFER IS WALKING THE DAMN EARTH FFS

5.22: Possibly worse than being in hell: thinking Sam is stuck in a small box in hell with Lucifer. It’s so bad that Dean essentially walks away from everything he’s ever known or loved to join the White Picket Fence league with a woman he’s spent a grand total of four days of his entire life with. Let me repeat: He gave up HIS ENTIRE LIFE to completely reinvent himself WITH SOMEONE HE BARELY KNEW. Just to save himself from having to think about the ~entirety of his life to that point~. Talk about fucking depressing. 12/12 yes this might be cheating but I couldn’t decide which would be worse for Dean-- Sam in Hell or him in Hell. So, tie.

6.22: Yeah, Cas’s plan to stop the Apocalypse Reboot worked, but with one VERY BIG DRAWBACK. Baby’s wrecked, Sam’s crazy, and Cas has literally let all that newfound power go straight to his head. Dean’s adrift again. No amount of juggling can keep all those balls in the air. (BALLS!) 8/12 Owie

7.23: Sure, he and Cas got Dick, but landed themselves in Purgatory for their troubles. So, one huge win, and one huge loss. 5/12 because hey, win! but also wtf gorilla wolves and Cas flaps off to who tf knows where

8.23: A little forgiveness, a little abandonment. He stopped Sam from finishing the Hell Trials, but Cas flew off before he could stop him from falling into Metatron’s trap, and now he’s got a half-dead Sammy, the nearly human King of Hell in his trunk, and no idea what happened to Cas. (honestly Dean here makes me think of Homer Simpson that time Lisa pushed his pig down the hill and he chased after it until it launched through the air shouting “It’s just a little airborne! It’s still good! It’s still good!” and that just makes me wanna cry okay) 10/12 for the most airborne roasted pigs ever at one time

9.23: *flish* but hey at least he’s not dead-dead, right? I think this is the one time where Dean *in that moment* (if we could interview Dean at the end of each season finale and ask his current state of mind) would’ve said he’d felt better than he ever had before. Because his feelings were kinda... non-existent. So while it was probably like a little vacation from the burden of being Dean Winchester for him, for us it meant five months of anguish (and laughing through our anguish with crack theories about him getting stuck in demon traps and getting tricked into drinking holy water) 2/12 (from Dean’s pov at least, at the time)

10.23: Well, he’d just killed Death, which is kind of one of those nervous laughter what the fuck have I done major life reevaluation moments in itself, but then ZAP the Mark of Cain is gone. He gets five minutes to feel good about all of that when oops, Something Is Seriously Wrong, and we have the Darkness. At least he’s 100% back to being himself after a year and a half fighting against the Mark... or is he? 4/12 for serving Death his last meal and finally getting free of the mark... sort of

11.23: He’s resigned himself to the fact that he needs to die, but then he manages to Dr. Phil God and the Darkness into reconciliation. Definitely a high point in Dean’s life. As far as he knows, all his friends and family are safe, even if said friends and family don’t know yet that HE’S safe. And that he’s bringing home an unexpected guest in the form of his resurrected mother. It’s all a little overwhelming and happy and he doesn’t exactly know where to even BEGIN processing it all. 1/12 for major successes all around (since he doesn’t know Sam’s been abducted yet)

BONUS: since we don’t know where the winds of s12 will blow, but we do know where the midseason finale left us:

12.08: MAJOR win on tossing Lucifer back into the cage. MAJOR loss on getting tossed into the human version of the cage. 6/12 for being pretty well balanced, the bad against the good.

So, to recap, season finales in order of Dean’s Personal Best to Dean’s Personal Worst:

s11

s10

s12 (at the midseason finale)

and tied for last place, s3 and s5.

#the great meta scavenger hunt #aka the Hold My Beer meta challenge #round two ding ding ding!#oh DEAN #season finales

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dorksideproductions · 7 years

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So Star Wars Rebels is back with it’s fourth and (gasp) final season with a two-part opener entitled Heroes of Mandalore. So how was it? Did it live up to the promises of the beginning of a satisfying end? Did Sabine’s return to Mandalore arc reach a satisfying conclusion? Well……… ****SPOILERS**** after the break, and they’re bloody. Just sayin’….

OK, so here goes nothing. I’m not going to do a long-winded recap summary, I’ll keep that part brief so I can get to what worked for me and what didn’t. In a nutshell, Sabine and part of the crew of the Ghost (Kanan, Ezra, and Chopper) return to Mandalore in hopes of liberating the planet from Imperial occupation and to find a worthy wielder for the Darksaber. After season three’s Mandalore arc my hopes were super-high that we were building towards not only an epic showdown on Mandalore in regards to not only the aforementioned Imperial occupation and the Darksaber but also Sabine’s complicated relationship with the planet and the weapon she created that we’ve been hearing bits and pieces about since season one if I’m not mistaken.

OK, so here’s the quick rundown – the crew fights to liberate Sabine’s dad from Imperial imprisonment, and after a successful rescue, Mandalore’s new governor, Tiber Saxon (who came completely out of nowhere to replace his dead brother, Gar Saxon, who was killed by Ursa Wren in season three) dispatches the weapon that Sabine designed for the Empire during her time in the Academy on her family and clan. Also aiding in the rescue was Clan Kryze, led by none other than Bo-Katan Kryze who made her first appearance in The Clone Wars. After some dissent and anger towards Sabine over the creation of the weapon (which happens to be called the Duchess of all things), the Mandalorian clans unite to fight Tiber Saxon and disable the weapon. In the end they are successful and Bo-Katan accepts the Darksaber from Sabine to become the symbolic leader of Mandalore. Ok, let’s get to the best part – my opinions!

What worked for me:

Kanan – he was awesome in this episode and I have really enjoyed his arc throughout the series from the middle of season two on. His interaction with Hera via hologram was touching and is obviously foreshadowing the tragedy their relationship is sure to suffer before the end of the final season. His calm and cool demeanor is welcome in this show, as immaturity has a tendency to run rampant, even as the younger members of the Ghost crew get older.

Chopper – always funny, always on point. I am really just putting him in here so I can reference his ‘get a room already’ comment to Kanan and Hera. Hilarious.

The chase – lots of Indiana Jones influence in the chase sequence on the surface of Mandalore to rescue Sabine’s imprisoned father, Alrich Wren. Mando’s flying on jetpacks and Jedi doing Jedi stuff was an awesome combination.

Bo-Katan Kryze’s return – I’ve been speculating that Bo-Katan would wield the legendary Darksaber since Sabine and crew claimed it from Maul in season three, and it was awesome to see that prediction come to fruition. As the sister of the former ruler of Mandalore (and love interest of Obi-Wan Kenobi), Duchess Satine Kryze, it only seemed right that she would become the symbolic leader of Mandalore and unite the clans in their fight against Imperial occupation. I do have a few gripes about this which I’ll touch on below, but overall this wraps up the Mandalore storyline in a fitting way.

Mandalorians being Mandalorians – although I like the portrayal of Mandalore and it’s people in The Clone Wars, I understand many fan’s gripes about the direction George Lucas and Dave Filoni took the planet and it’s people. In Rebels we’ve seen a return to what we were led to believe via the old EU/Legends material that Mandalorians were like – bad ass! It’s cool to see the different clans flying around on jetpacks and being the fierce warriors we have come to expect. I’d also like to give kudos to the design team for not taking the easy way out design-wise with the clans, giving each a distinctive look and aesthetic. It didn’t go unnoticed.

Beskar Alloy – the legendary (pun intended) material Mandalorians use to construct their armor is officially canon. Awesome, thanks Dave!

What didn’t work for me:

Ezra – seriously, isn’t it time for Ezra to be a hero and not the comic relief? It’s so frustrating watching Ezra’s character arc continually regress from the end of season two/beginning of season three, and it’s hard not to think Filoni, Gilroy, and crew are taking it too easy on the audience here. His ridiculous series of hijinx with the jetpack was a distraction and quite simply wasn’t even funny. Also, that stupid Scout Biker helmet needs to go, why the hell does he keep wearing that thing?? I’m going to (hesitantly) stick by my prediction that Ezra will in fact be the Jedi to die (rather than Kanan), but I reserve the right to change that prediction as late as halfway through season four, because well, it’s my blog…

Sabine – after an emotionally-charged arc for Sabine in season three I feel like the resolution to the Mandalorian story arc and her role in it was completely rushed and unfulfilling. And while I admit I’m glad the Mando arc is over (hopefully), way too many scenes in Heroes of Mandalore felt rushed and unconvincing. Also, we know Sabine is a prodigy, but to think that she was able to build this superweapon that was so devastating to Mandalorians in armor at the age of 14 or 15 is pushing it. I’m surprised nobody else is talking about that…. Furthermore, she named it the Duchess? That’s just wrong, and her excuse was super lame. Duchess Satine was by far the best leader Mandalore has had in canon, I have a very hard time believing even the most angsty teenager would name a superweapon that only targets Mandalorians after her. Come on man.

Take a chance Filoni!!! – dude, you had a chance to make a real difference in Sabine’s arc by killing her mother and brother off when the superweapon is used on them and you wimped out!!! Don’t be afraid to kill off characters, man! And these two in particular were so ripe for the picking, as their deaths would’ve resonated strongly in the show given we are in the final season, and shown the audience that the stakes are very high for our heroes as the series winds down. Huge missed opportunity there, let’s hope the creators show more guts moving forward in the final 11 episodes of season four….

Alrich Wren = Bail Organa? – not really, but it would be hard to tell just by looking at the animation models… Could the design team not have come up with a character model for Sabine’s dad that looked original? I mean the resemblance to Organa is startling, to say the least, and distracting.

Tiber Saxon, where’d you come from? – OK, so it’s not a stretch that the recently deceased Gar Saxon’s brother Tiber would take up the mantle of Imperial Governor of Mandalore, but this dude came out of nowhere. This belies a huge problem with Rebels in that there is continually no build up. I wish the creative team would trust the audience like they did with The Clone Wars and build longer story arcs. It wouldn’t have been hard to introduce the character of Tiber Saxon in season three so he didn’t just seemingly appear out of nowhere. This brand of storytelling just isn’t fulfilling to me. Which speaks to a larger problem of….

Lack of real story arcs – I get that Rebels loves to wrap up story arcs in one or two episodes, but it’s so hard to do that convincingly as the series progresses and gets more complex. I was really hoping that the fourth and final season would have a true sense of connectivity in the way that The Clone Wars did, but unfortunately I’m not very hopeful that will happen in the way fans want it to. I would love to see true demographics on just who is watching Star Wars Rebels, because I think the fanbase is older and more mature than Lucasfilm is trying to cater to.

The destruction of the Duchess – OK, so Sabine (very quickly, conveniently enough) is able to turn the weapon against the Empire and use it to target the Stormtroopers plastoid armor as opposed to the Mandalorian’s beskar alloy armor and you destroyed it??? And Chopper and Kanan destroyed all the plans and blueprints??? Don’t you think you could’ve used that in the future? OK then. Saw Gerrera would NOT approve.

Bo-Katan and the Darksaber – I know up top I said I liked this, and I still do. However, I must point out that it’s a little morbid that Bo-Katan now wields the weapon that was used by Maul to murder her sister but OK. You do you, Bo-Katan.

And finally, the ‘what the hell’ category:

Aging on Mandalore – we know the twin suns of Tatooine cause the residents there to age rapidly, but does the the moon of Concordia have the complete opposite effect on the people of Mandalore by chance?? Bo-Katan is almost 20 years older than we last saw her and she looks younger now than she did then. It was comical to hear the creative team talk on Rebels Recon about her character model, quite frankly….

Overall this was a very unsatisfactory start to the fourth and final season of Star Wars Rebels, and by far the worst season premiere in the series’ history. My hope is that things will pick up now and that we can leave Mandalore alone moving forward. Quite frankly, these two episodes should’ve been part of season three, but oh well. Fingers crossed as we move into the final 11 episodes of Rebels. Below are some pics from the official Star Wars site as well as a link to Rebels Recon. Feedback? Gripes? Agreements? Wanna be a guest on The Exhaust Port podcast? Hit me here.

~Todd

Rebels Review – Heroes of Mandalore – S4, Ep’s 1 & 2 So Star Wars Rebels is back with it's fourth and (gasp) final season with a two-part opener entitled…

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twdmusicboxmystery · 7 years

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Roman Numerals, 8s, 10s, Xs, and Beth’s Return

Good morning and Happy Saturday! So as I’ve been saying the past few weeks, @wdway and I have been doing re-watches and finding some interesting things. A lot of these insights come directly from her research. Thanks so much for all your hard work and eagle eyes, Hon!

The biggest problem I ran into while writing this was what order to present everything in. Some much of it is so intertwined, if I start talking about one, I’ll have to talk about the others. So I’m gonna try really hard to keep from confusing you all.

It was @wdway that first turned me on to look for the X symbol. Once I did, I started seeing them everywhere. Let me start by giving you some examples.

We’ve seen them all the way since S1 in license plates, but I’m not going to talk about license plates today. They’re super important, but they’re getting their own post later.

We’ve also seen them quite frequently on signs, such as railroad crossing signs (RXR) and we all know the train tracks are an important symbol all their own.

We see them as notches in both Beth and Maggie’s belts, Beth’s starting in S3 and Maggie’s starting in S4. (I’m not going to talk about the belts today. They’re important, but again, that’s another post.)

In S5, we saw them on the trees around Morgan. With the circle around them, they also happen to be an electric symbol for lamps (X) and also look like a modified coda. Which is interesting given that we saw them in 5x08.

Also in S5, we saw them near Sasha in the dry creek bed (near the frogs) in 5x10:

We also saw them on Crazy Boxcar Dude’s face at Terminus.

And then here, in FG’s church while Maggie, Sasha and he pray together.

Interestingly, we actually see them around Grady in a few ways. When Rick discusses the plan with everyone, he draws a floor plan of Grady in the dirt and uses Xs to show where each person will be. So X = a person.

Of course we get a sea of Xs in the chain link of this shot:

(And yes, I know we see a lot of chain link in the show. I don’t think you could point to any random instance of chain link as a symbol. But when there’s a lot of it, when it’s emphasized, etc., it’s probably important. This was a specific decision to show this tragic, iconic shot through chain link rather than put the camera on the other side of it for a clearer view.)

Moving into S6, we saw them around Morgan again on rocks and on the porch of Eastman’s house.

We saw Sasha emphasize an X in Daryl’s last name when she wrote it on the door.

In 6x16/7x01 we saw the Saviors mark the Librarian guy they hung with an X. In the S7 premiere, Negan went back to that spot with Rick and Rick actually climbed the corpse to get away from the walker horde. They really emphasized it, in other words.

(Which btw I think may support my theory about the Captain Hanson backstory at Grady pointing toward Beth helping Rick through something.)

We saw them around Sasha and Rosita in 7b as well.

(Understand that these are only a few instances. I’m sure they’re all over the place, chilling in the background of scenes and such. But these are ones that stood out to us.)

And of course, as @wdway points out, turning an X results in a cross and vise versa. (A tactic employed in the recent Logan (wolverine) film.)

So, what does this all mean? What do the Xs represent? I bet you can guess what I’m gonna say. Yup, I’ll say it: we think they represent Beth. Or things to do with her. It’s hard to say exactly how this realization formed, other than just seeing Xs all over having to do with her. But I’ll get to some stuff that @wdway has found recently that really confirmed our beliefs.

First, let’s talk about Tara.

Remember in 7x06, when we saw some lines of Roman Numerals on her arm, but we couldn’t see the bottom line?

@wdway noticed two more instances when we see this tattoo, though they’re much subtler than this one, and I found yet another. While doing the re-watch, she noticed that in this scene in 4x07, you can see the tattoo.

We just didn’t realize it was visible before S7. I also found it here

but it’s VERY hard to see. I don’t think from either of these shots in S4, we would have been able to tell what the tattoo said. But still, this was something obviously planned since S4, when Gimple took the reins.

The other instance @wdway noticed was here in 7x10:

And the interesting thing in this case is that you can see the bottom line that was hidden in 7x06. Can you tell what it is? Yup, that’s right. It’s an 8. So these are the lines we have, all in roman numerals

26: XXVI

13: XIII

22: XXII

9: IX

8: VIII

I don’t know what the top four numbers mean. I’ve played around with them somewhat–counting episodes Tara is in and trying to multiply or divide them in various ways. Nothing ingenious has come to me. They may have to do with Tara’s arc herself (rather than Beth) and they may foreshadow something to come. If that’s the case, we can’t possibly know what it is yet.

The 8 is suspicious, of course, to TD. And it’s made even more so in my opinion because it was hidden in that close up shot. If they really wanted to hide it, they wouldn’t have shown it to us a few episodes later. And remember Glenn’s theme from 5a: “There’s nothing worth finding in this world that isn’t hidden.” I believe he even said that to Tara.

But there’s more. Again, this is an insight from @wdway. The clock in Still, which we first saw at 8 minutes before the hour, and then chimed, showing that 8 minutes had passed before Beth “made it” had roman numerals, rather than numbers.

As far as we know, there are only two other clocks with roman numerals on the face rather than numbers or other marks. The first is—once again—at Grady. In 5x07 Crossed, there’s a clock in Edwards’ office with roman numerals. The weird thing about this clock is that it changes mid-scene. This may be hard to see, but in this top picture, the hands point at the 8 and the 4.

In otherwords, episode 8x04. Then, 30 seconds later and in the same scene, it changes to the 8 and the 10.

Perhaps something this scene foreshadows will be an arc that goes from 8x04-8x10. That actually makes all kinds of sense given the rest of this theory but I’ll come back to it. The final clock is the one Cindy looks at here at Oceanside.

As you can see, it also reads 8:20, which would point to episode 8x04.

Could it be that Beth will appear in 8x04? Or that she’ll show up at Oceanside in that episode? Perhaps both.

Three clocks = Rule of Threes. All wrapped up in Beth symbolism. First in Still, then at Grady, then at Oceanside.

We’ll have to look for other clocks as we go, but I even checked watches and the ones in WHAWGO to be sure. They either have regular numbers or just lines in place of numbers. In some cases, they’re too blurry to tell for sure. In those cases, we certainly don’t see roman numerals.

So we have Xs that are wrapped up in TD symbolism, with ties to Tara, Oceanside, and Still. It certainly looks like they were trying to tie the clocks in 4x12 and 6x07 together, which is awesome!

A couple more facts about Xs. In roman numerology, the X = 10, right? We do see some 10 stuff around Beth. Not as much as 7 or 8 stuff, but a bit.

Every season, episode 10 is significant in some way to Beth.

(No episode 10 in S1).

S2x10: 18 Miles Out (suicide arc)

S3x10: Home (Talks to Carol about Daryl)

S4x10: Inmates (Dairy voice over and backward story progression.)

S5x10: Them (Music box wakes up.)

S6x10: The Next World (Rickyl/Bethyl parallels, meet JESUS on the road.)

7x10: New Best Friends (Daryl says goodbye to Carol, Carol reads novel with a serious piggyback on the cover.)

Plus, I might add, we’ve seen a lot of 100s, which 10 is an obvious factor of. And episode 100 is 8x01.

So given these 10s, the 8:50 on Edwards’ clock makes sense. I wonder if Beth will show up at Oceanside in 8x04, but we won’t see the entirety of how she escaped until 8x10. If 8x10 mirrors 4x10, Inmates, at all, we might even hear more voice overs or see flashbacks.

I’d also like to point out that right after talking to Edwards, Beth walks into the hallway and we have some definite Dark Tunnel Symbolism there. (X, X, X).

She’s heading into her dark tunnel as we head into Coda, but there’s a light at the end, showing that she’ll come out the other side eventually.

Buuuutt, there’s one more thing you all ought to be aware of concerning the letter X. @wdway and her ingenious research uncovered something more. Put roman numerology aside for a moment. We’ve seen both that and the Greek alphabet symbols used in the show. She looked up Hebrew. And guess what? The symbol for the number 8 in Hebrew numerology is an X. The word for it is “chet” and it means “New Beginnings.”

(Source)

On that subject I’m sure this has probably been said before, but I was thinking about it in more detail yesterday. In Christian symbolism, 8 is the number of baptism. Baptism, by definition, is a spiritual rebirth. So (and this is what I was listening to the other day that made me think about this) the baptismal font, full of water, is a likeness of the grave. One comes up out of it, newly baptized, as though being resurrected and beginning life anew.

(P.S. Doing re-watches, I’ve found a lot more 8s than I would have thought. I’ll do a post showing all of them, but I don’t want to make this theory any longer.)

Given all of this, it just makes all kinds of sense that Beth will come by water (greenroute) in S8.

So…Tara’s roman numerals? Important.

8s? Important.

10s? Important.

Xs? VERY important.

So I’ll let you go back through the list of Xs at the beginning of the theory and figure out how they relate to Beth. Some are obvious. Others aren’t but we still have theories about them (*coughs Dude at Terminus*).

And can I just add that I love that the X, a symbol for 8s and Beth’s return was put BY SASHA in the middle of Daryl’s name. Love that. ;D

So everyone keep your eyes out for Xs as you re-watch. (Not that we need tons more evidence, but it’s just fun. ;D)

Thoughts?

#td #beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance

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