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theonceoverthinker · 5 years

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OUAT 3X21 AND 3X22 - “Snow Drifts” AND “There’s No Place Like Home”

Watch what happens when Miss Swan tries to EMMA-ncipate herself from Storybrooke!

Bwahahahahah!!!!

Anyways, let’s do the time warp agaiiiiiiiinn!

You better WATCH yourself because we’re going back to revisit the Season 3 finale below the cut! XD

I’m sorry this is so late! Super Smash Bros Ultimate kind of stole my life for a few weeks, but I’m back now!

Press Release

While Mary Margaret and David celebrate the naming of their son at a coronation in Granny’s Diner, Emma and Hook are pulled into Zelena’s time portal and find themselves in the Enchanted Forest of the past. But in their quest to discover a way back, they must be careful not to change ANYTHING or risk altering the lives of their friends and family – as well as their very own existence.

Main Thoughts - Characters/Stories/Themes and Their Effectiveness

Past/Present/Everything (?) XD

“Back to the Future” is my all time favorite movie, so is it any surprise that I fucking love this two parter? No? Well, good! Now let’s talk about why!

Revisiting this finale really shows me just how many story and plot points were set up in those first few minutes in such a natural way. This is easily one of the tightest finales in the show’s history in that regard. The story and plot here is so well paced. Never does anything, even for a second feel off or poorly spoken or anything of the sort! It’s just good! The absolute best instance of this is the two Hooks scene. Like, that was just so fucking CRAFTY for how Killian and Emma organize and enact the plan to get Snow to work for him.

I like how the opening of the episode finally lays out all the cards: Emma’s decision to go back to New York is a selfish one. She plainly admits this and spells out why. It’s framed as a bad thing to do and the episode’s goal is to tackle that. It’s the heart of the episode and it’s incredibly effective thanks to those opening shots that show just how much pain Emma’s been in throughout her past.

Oh my fucking God, all of the actors are just amazing here! EVERYONE gets a great moment! I talk a ton about Emma and Jen, obviously, so let’s give a shoutout to the others! Robert Carlyle gets to put all of Rumple’s delicious character aspects on display, from Rumple’s silliness to Mr. Gold’s snarkiness to both of their more sympathetic sides. Lana gets some fucking delicious ham as we see her Season 1 Evil Queen come out! Josh pulls off the perfect mix between being everything that Prince Charming is supposed to be with a more modern snark that makes him human. The same goes for Ginny, though the placement of this episode has Snow showing off a more believably cynical side to the character, which she nails! Jared Gilmore performs a fantastic Henry, understanding though still always tugging at Emma to come and stay home. Emilie de Ravin’s heart and soul during the wedding scene is just so present, so much so that I just feel myself bursting out in tears throughout the whole scene. And Colin, who boy! Colin had to take on two versions of himself and every moment of that was just delicious!

”Lovely ball the other night.” ...Is this to say that there was a day break between Emma being caught by Regina’s guards and being put in her cell? It makes sense, but WOW! I never thought of it like that!

The execution scene. The fucking kills me. I know Snow’s alive, but I don't fucking care. I still feel every bit of that sense of dread and disgust as the fireball takes her. And how that affects Emma, she can barely speak and when even the possibility of Snow being alive comes to light, Emma’s immediately back to full energy! Emma’s love for Snow is such an effective driving force behind the solving of her conflict of finding home. The moment that choked me up this time was Emma shouting “you’re alive” to Snow right before hugging her. Just...and then we have to sit on the reaction when Snow doesn’t recognize her. It’s just too much.

And Emma’s revelation. I love how slow and emotional the moment gets to be as she tells Killian why she wants to stop running and how she values her mother and life in Storybrooke. It’s so heartbreaking and heartwarming in the same vein. It’s this gentle breakdown that understands that yes, Emma has been selfish, but she wants to do and be better for everyone, including herself. She wants to be like the rest of her family. She wants to be a part of something. And the smile on hers and Killian’s face as she comes to terms with that lesson...it’s just the best kind of payoff! And then the reunion, accompanied by that GORGEOUS melody as Emma finally remedies her behavior towards her parents. It’s one of the most beautiful moments in the entire show.

So let’s talk about Baby Neal briefly, or rather, his name. This is one of the most contentious points in the entire fandom. I...don’t love it (but don’t hate it), but only because Snow and Charming didn’t interact with Neal all that much. Had they had any meaningful time together, I think this naming would’ve been not only good, but great. Even still though, I don’t really care too much one way or the other. I’m one of those people who is completely fine with kids on this show being named after the dead. Maybe that’s because it’s the case in so much of the other media that I’ve seen throughout my life and apart of the Jewish culture I grew up with, but I don’t understand the fandom’s hangup with that reason for names. People are named after the dead. It’s not that big of a deal.

Insights - Stream of Consciousness

-Guys, that is just cruel and unusual punishment to make all of the kids stand outside and watch a kid get adopted right in front of them. I get they’re trying to be polite and inspire hope, but they’ve GOT to know that that’s difficult for the non adopted kids to watch! Like, the actual fuck?!

-Dammit. The cameraman who kept the shot on Emma as she sees a kid driving off with a new family fucking is an evil genius and fucking WRECKS me! *sobs into infinity*

-Do you think Lucy had a coronation ceremony?

-Potluck at Granny’s, huh? I don’t know if that’s good because you’re thrusting less work onto Granny or bad because you’re denying her the business.

-Okay, I know Emma’s running away from her problems and all, but that retort about Snow and David stalling for time was fucking hysterical! XD

-Robin, that is one luxurious spread! But why are you guys sitting on the floor?! Don’t you know that Regina’s a queen and a bit more refined? XD

-”I would’ve walked through hell to be with my Marian again.” ...Dammit. I really want a Robin/Marian Underworld fic.

-”That [vault] was only for the most dangerous and unstable magic.” Then that sounds like a GREAT place for the dagger! “And this doesn’t qualify?” “No.” YES!

-To tell you the truth, I guess when you factor in both Rumple’s sacrifice AND the fact that he’s scary powerful, it makes sense that Maurice would bless the marriage. Like, he’s still a shit person, but the decision makes sense. I do feel though like they just stuck him in so that there was one extra person at the wedding, but I’d honestly think Ruby would’ve been a more appropriate choice since she was closer to Belle and even helped out Rumple on occasion, especially since she was actually in the episode.

-The entire back-and-forth about the origins of Snowing is the greatest thing in the world! XD

-KATHRYN! My sweet cinnamon roll!!! You look so happy and you’re talking with Best Matriarch!!! <3

-Okay! The Captain Cobra moment here is so fucking underrated! Henry trusts Killian with his fucking storybook! Like, this book just gave him back his memories and Henry trusts Killian with it to help his mom! Just...YES PLEASE!!!!

-”Stubborn like her...all of our family.” To be fair, have you MET your family, David? That correction is pretty accurate.

-”She would curb any homicidal tendencies.” ...I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works, mate!

-I love RC’s “oh shit” face.

-...To tell you the truth, now that we know Zelena survived, that corrupted footage isn’t that far off the mark.

-”You defeated the bloody Wicked Witch. You defeated Pan.” ...You’re not fully on the mark, Killian, but I do agree that she had a big part in taking them down.

-I LOVE THIS FUCKING MIRROR LAKE!

-Lana! Lana! There’s so much beautiful ham here and I love you for it!!! This scene where she’s intimidating the villagers! Just...this is perfection!

-BOOBS! I mean...Emma’s EF attire looks great! ...BOOBS! <3

-I just LOVE Emma’s smile as she watches the set up for her parent’s first meeting. Like, I legit reared up because that smile alongside the Snowing theme just...it was fantastic.

-”It’s a miracle you two fall for each other.” I love that ‘da fuq, Emma’ look Killian gives Emma.

-I love that look Killian gives Emma when he says “me.”

-...Damn, Killian looks good funny encased in shadows.

-And then he has to say “privacy” in only the way Killian Jones can do.

-”Ooh confidence. I like it.” And I like your confidence. ...Damnit, OUAT men! Stop being so attractive!

-Regina just ROCKS her every entrance!

-”It’s all about the tumblers.” I spell it differently, but I feel you, man. XD

-I love the way Neal describes his past with Rumple. The tragedy of their separation comes from the fact that they loved each other so much, but Rumple couldn’t overcome his demons in a way that could help them stay together.

-I LOVE this Captain Charming scene. The bros are so supportive of one another, though David doesn’t fully grasp who Killian is to him!

-”Who knows? Maybe you’ll end up with them again.” ...That hurrrrts!

-Ruby is such a badass!!!

-”Hook!” How strange must this nickname be to everyone else in this room?! XD

-*Snow sneaks up on Regina* Oh SNOW you didn’t!!! XD

-Aww! I love that Red Snow hug!!!

-You know, I really like the design of the trolls and am sad that they weren’t used more often.

-”I’m devilishly handsome again.” Yes you are!

-Gee! Is that urn important?

-I love both Rumple and Emma’s reactions to Neal’s name. That subtle happiness, especially on Rumple’s face, is just so beautiful!

-So I have so many feelings on Killian ‘ditching his crew.’ I actually wrote an entire fic about it. BUT that having been said, I think the choice he made was the right one.

-Archie, they’re getting married, not going ice skating. Wear a fucking suit!

-I can’t get as swept up in the OQ tragedy because Roland says “mama” and that is too fucking cute!

-Okay, that reveal of Elsa was SO FUCKING WELL SHOT! I love the slow buildup to her reveal, from the icy blue liquid in the urn to the forming of her dress to the shape of her hair to the dismissal of the liquid and finally, to the reveal of her powers! What an EPIC intro! Best one ever! Now I know you’re upset about that, Regina, but you just have to *takes deep breath* LET IT GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! (And THAT’S how you close out a season!)

Arcs - How Are These Storylines Progressing?

Emma Accepting Home - So look, I love how every season touches upon another aspect of Emma’s acceptance of people into her life, but on some level, I do get how the fandom got sick of it after a certain point. I firmly believe that this was the best and ultimate moment of culmination of this aspect of Emma’s character. That’s not to say that I didn’t like it in other seasons. Fuck no, I loved it in other seasons, but this was the best handling of it. The idea of those Emma loves and their philosophies on home and family all come together in this beautifully blended way. Emma’s parents, Henry, Killian, Neal, and more all contribute to her outlook on her life in Storybrooke and how her walls can be detrimental. And seeing Emma realize that makes for such a beautiful journey.

Killian’s Redemption - “That man sitting there, you don’t know him. Just be careful.” I feel like this line speaks to Killian’s improvement. He doesn’t want someone he cares for to see how lousy he was. And Killian’s redemption really gets its proper payoff here. With many of his past wrongs righted, Killian is finally given appreciation for helping get Emma back to Storybrooke. I think there’s an added layer to “you traded your ship for me.” Basically, Emma has to press him unyieldingly in order to find this out, meaning that he was never going to tell her on his own. He was willing to give up his home and have the act go anonymous.

Regina’s Redemption - ….Fuck. So, I’ve gone on about how I loved Regina’s Redemption this season. That is completely true. And this is where we take a GIANT step back. I GET that Regina feels resentment towards Emma. In this episode, it’s even at an okay level. BUT, going forward, this gives way to perhaps my least favorite Regina arcs. Thankfully, it only lasts for five episodes and I like the handling of it in the first four...you know what? We’ll talk about it when we get there! Apart from that aspect, I felt like Regina had reached a good place here! Her character is becoming more concrete.

Rumple’s Redemption - This is one of those episodes where Rumple’s decision to hide the real dagger and the truth about Zelena’s death makes things really sticky. And don’t forget, I was on his side for her death, but now’s the time to come forward! Apart from this aspect of it, something not at all glossed over in the episode itself, Rumple is framed as good. His wedding is a moment of character payoff and the happiness he feels as he gets married and Snowing’s son is named after Neal feels earned in a lot of ways. And the weirdest thing is that that’s Rumple for you: Undeniable someone with a big heaping helping of darkness, but a fuckton of character in there too. Like, this doesn’t ruin the episode by any means, but it’s there and it’s weird.

Neal’s Death - “Home is the place when you leave, you just miss it.” I think it was a fantastic story element to make one of the most poignant and thematically present lines in the episode something Emma learned from Neal. Not only that, but even some more of Neal’s minor advice comes in handy, like how to unlock the prison cell!

Favorite Dynamic

Emma and Killian. ...Look I work hard not to incorporate too much shipping into the meatier parts of the review and I’ll keep the romance out of it, I promise. So just give me this one. Cool beans? Cool beans. But seriously, I do actually have completely non-shippy reasons to love this dynamic as it works in this episode. For a time travel story to really work, there needs to be at the heart of it characters who know what’s going on and can interact with one another. It’s the most important dynamic in the story and if they fucked it up, the rest of the tale would’ve fallen apart, but thankfully, with Emma and Killian together, the special thrived. Killian and Emma both bring something to the table. Emma brings that fresh face and serves as a focal point for the story. Her naivete of some of the fairy tale elements and personal relationship to the people from the past is what keeps the story going and engaging. And Killian in a lot of ways helps to keep her grounded. While he cares deeply for Emma, his existence is not the one on the line and his lack of a familial relationship allows for some space between him and the events. He gets to be the clear thinker when Emma panics and her guide since this is his world as well as the voice of reason. And in return, Emma gets to perform the cool stunts, save people, and stand up to the past version of the Evil Queen. She even gets to save Killian’s ass in the case of royal balls and keeping his past self distracted. Together, they get to bounce around ideas, make jokes, and share moments of revelations that other characters in this episode aren’t and can’t be privy to. These two characters come together and make for a good and balanced dynamic for that reason. Additionally, Jen and Colin’s chemistry allows for a balance between things being lighthearted and serious when they need to be. Whether you like them as a couple or not, I don’t think it can be denied that they are the reason for why the main story was as entertaining as it was.

Writer

We have four writers here, two per episodes. David Goodman and Robert Hull worked on “Snow Drifts” and Adam and Eddy wrote “There’s No Place Like Home.” And they all did so freakin’ well! You can tell how careful these guys were with most every writing decision ever made. They managed to rework a fantastic episode, “Snow Drifts,” while still keeping to the dignity of it at the same time. It gels so well into also being a family story and allowing for as many fun character interactions as possible.

Rating

Double Golden Apple! What more can I honestly say? It’s as close to perfect as OUAT can get for me!

Flip My Ship - The Home of All Things “Shippy Goodness”

CAPTAIN SWAN, MOFOS! - THERE IS A REASON THIS BEAUTIFUL EPISODE IS CALLED THE CS MOVIE BECAUSE HOT DAMN IT IS A CS MOVIE!!!!! As I said in the “Favorite Dynamics” section, Killian is a constant source of support for Emma. He knows that she belongs with her family, respects her ideas, and challenges her. And just, let’s get through the moments, okay?! Like, he goes through a time portal for her! “One of these days, I’m gonna stop chasing this woman.” The fuck you are, buddy. You’re chasing her for all eternity! And just, he’s got her. He keeps her sane as she freaks out. He helps her relax. And just...the LOOKS he gives her! Like, look at how they joke around when Emma changes clothes, those little flirty looks! XD And speaking up, how about that loosening up of the corset and “you and I both know I’m his type?” Because that kills me. It utterly kills me! Someone drag my soul out of the Underworld because that scene destroys me in the best way possible! And the dude gets jealous of Emma kissing his past self, so fucking jealous that he needs to take his-fucking-self out! XD AND NOW WE GET TO THE BALL! THE FUCKING BALL THAT OWNS MY ETERNAL ASS! First, look at those smiles as Killian compliments Emma. THEN look at how Emma covers for Killian like a mofo’in boss! FINALLY, THE DANCING. IMMORTALIZED IN THE BOOK FOR ALL TIME IS MY FAVORITE CS MOMENT! EMMA GETS TO PLAY PRINCESS AND FEEL LIKE A ROYAL. KILLIAN GETS TO TREAT HER TO SUCH AND TEACH HER HOW TO WALTZ. AND THEY”RE SMILING AND HAVING SO MUCH FUN. IT”S PERFECT! HONESTLY PERFECT! Okay, I’m semi-recovered from that. Now, I also LOVE how Emma holds that ring to Killian and it looks just SO much like she’s proposing! And THEN “I’d go to the end of the world for her. Or time.” Just...you need to stop loving Emma so much because my heart cannot take it! And notice Emma’s smile when she says “Hook.” Then, we get an interesting callback to the Neverland Arc. When Emma asks Killian about his brother, Killian’s unwilling to talk about it, but here, knowing she needs that, he tells her what she needs to know. AND “I always knew there was a little pirate in you Swan.” She’s certainly getting there! And just...I love how Killian’s both harsh and gentle with Emma as she has her moment of realization. And THEN, Emma, after being with Killian for most of basically two or three days, goes out to see him again because he’s all alone! Just...the confession about giving up The Jolly Roger for love. I love how Killian never intended to reveal this and how Emma knows the weight of that choice. It just makes the subsequent kiss so satisfying!

Rumbelle - Oh yeah...There are other couples in this episode too! XD Sorry, but yes, I ADORED the Rumbelle in this episode. Like, in the past, I love how Rumple gets so embarrassed by Belle thinking that he talked about her and how he dismissed her. It’s so cute! And now, that wedding! That wedding! Just...what can I say about these vows? They’re perfect. The editing allows them to encompass every other couple while the lines are still completely their own and work perfectly for Rumbelle as a couple. Rumbelle is every other couple at their best and worst, a mix of best and worst traits and I feel like this wedding is a celebration of that fact. On a funnier note, I love how Rumple and Belle didn’t even wait for the fucking “I do’s” and just went at each other with a kiss!

Outlaw Queen - Robin and Regina’s office picnic is so adorable and honest and open and beautiful! Like, they put everything on the floor, emotionally speaking.

Robin/Marian - Talking about Marian is difficult when you know that she’s actually Zelena, but this episode allows for her mostly to be herself, allowing for an accurate take on her. And to tell you the truth, I like this couple in a lot of ways. I love how much Robin misses Marian and that while he has moved on from her death, still cares for her so deeply. And Marian adores Robin! As soon as she’s free, she basically says “fuck it” to the stipulations of her freedom in order to be with him and Roland. Their love for each other is such a subtle and prevalent thing!

Snowing - Okay, so before we get to the past, let me say that I LOVE all of the Snowing banter at Granny’s! You can just TELL that a couple’s truly great when they can just joke and bicker about how they met and they have that down in SPADES! And in the past, I love the care that went into re-making Snowing’s story, but in a way that was still true to the original version. Though Emma, Killian, and Rumple are pulling the strings, Snow and Charming’s love is so carefully made to be all their own doing and that was so important. And I love the mix of new and old content so much. The repetition of lines just shows how true Snow and Charming’s love really is! And honestly, there’s something so special about Snow and Charming’s daughter being the one to bring them together!

Golden Hook - ...There’s so much FOETP goodness in here. Just, those hate-filled looks in the forest, that suffocation, the quips about burying the hatchet! There has never been true hate in all the lands! <3 Also, when Emma asks about how Killian got his hook, Killian’s next response is to say that she knows “who he is.” This hook and it’s origins, Rumple, are who he is.

Swanfire - That amusement park date was too cute and I really love how Neal’s advice is something that sticks with Emma. It shows Emma’s nuance as a character, as she can accept good and bad things about Neal, even during periods of time where she hated him. And I legit fucking BAWLED when Emma was telling Rumple about how she loved Neal and how he was a hero. Like, just...don’t talk to me! That was too much!

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Again, I am SO sorry this review took so long and wasn’t as deep as some of my others! Super Smash Bros, guys. Fucking dangerous. There was more that I wanted to talk about in this episode, but I’d rather you get the review than spend any more time! Thanks, as always, to @daensarah and @watchingfairytales!!! Love you guys so much!!! Hopefully, I can get the Overview done within the next few days and then we can get to season 4!!!!

Season 3 Total (207/220)

Writer’s Scores: Adam and Eddy (59/60)* Kalinda Vazquez (34/40)* Andrew Chambliss (42/50)* Jane Espenson (28/30)* David Goodman (39/40)* Robert Hull (40/40)* Christine Boylan (20/20)* Daniel Thomsen (28/30)*

* Indicates that their work for the season is complete

Links to the rest of my rewatch will no longer be provided. They take posts with links outside of searches and I spend way too much time on these reviews to not give them that kind of exposure. Sorry for the inconvenience, but they still can be found on my page under Operation Rewatch.

#ouat #once upon a time #emma swan #watching fairytales #ouat 3x21 #ouat 3x22 #jenna watches ouat

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ninjagoat · 5 years

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Note on Supergirl 4x02

This week, on the Metaphor For Xenophobia And Racism For White People:

- We return to the themes of episode 3x05, specifically how unfair it is when very, very powerful people have to face consequences for their actions.

- Seriously, it is so TOTALLY unfair how Olivia Marsdin has to resign just because she *checks notes* committed a massive criminal conspiracy to illegally win a presidential election.

- ON TOP OF THIS, it's also a mindshatteringly bad take on the Obama birther conspiracy. The birther story was not racist because it was "unfair" that people from Kenya couldn't be President. The birther story was racist because it assumed that President Obama's election HAD to be the result of a massive criminal conspiracy and not a genuine win MERELY BECAUSE HE WAS BLACK.

- Kara thinks Olivia can say something to get out of this; becasue Kara, being a seasoned journalist that now mentors other journalists, has no idea how laws work. Olivia schools her, which is noble; but it's still skating around the fact that she INTENTIONALLY BROKE THE LAW.

- All of that being said, I've always liked Ms. Carter's performance as Olivia. She's folksy, but tough. If she'd been an alien that had been born on Earth, I'd be fighting for her to stay as well.

- "Ugly is as ugly does; that makes you the ugly one!" This protest scene was written by fucking MILHOUSE.

- And then a fight break out. Because as we all know, security and crowd control are pretty lax on *checks notes* PENNYSYLVANIA AVENUE.

- The DEO interview process is clearly lacking something, because Agent White Dude has some serious prejudices that aren't suitable for the job; and the dude he's arguing with has Kara's level of understanding of the Constitution. Where's Pam when you need her?

- James - having spent the last two years publishing his onw love-letters to a local superhero, who is also himself - suddenly has a big stick up his arse about objectivity in news reporting.

- I maintain that the guy playing Otis is doing Ned Beatty but *serious*, and for that, he has my gratitude.

- I'm sorry? The DEO poisoned the atmosphere with lead? THE DEO? Not Lena Luthor, executing a plan from Lillian Luthor, using an original design by Lex Luthor; in the full knowledge it would likely murder her very recently betrothed and probably really upset her best friend? THAT'S WHAT WE'RE GOING WITH? (I realise this is just exposition, but it's pretty bad) At least Otis recognises the inherent viciousness of the plan, becuase no-one else has ever mentioned it.

- I would like to note that this is probably the most credit Winn has ever gotten from someone from his own time.

- Apparently, you can just... *buy* black-market Kryptonite? Arguably, the most powerful substances on Earth? The one that's so rare the show tied itself in knots justifying Lena's personally developed synthesis cache of it? ...kay.

- Lena's been working through meal-times. This is usually your five epsiode warning to evacuate the city.

- "Sales for the image inducers have been skyrocketing since the revelation that the President is an alien." This does not actually explain anything, because: a) it's not like Lena builds them herself; that'll be outsourced to China, at a location with safety netting around the roof to stop the workers killing themselves; and b) IT WAS YESTERDAY. WE KNOW WHAT YOU WERE DOING YESTERDAY. IT WAS THE PREVIOUS EPISODE.

- I get the sense that I'm going to spend time this season complaining about time-scales.

- At least they're keeping Lena's libetarianism consistent. Let's credit them with that. And of course, she's not immediately concerned with the potential collapse of democracy because MONEY.

- I will never cease to be confounded about the complete lack of coffee in the Catco building. I work for a relatively small company, and we have a Starbucks in our canteen.

- Weirder still is how increasingly hard it is to find. We've gone from Noonan's, to a little cart, and now to a *pizza place*. How hard is to find an *actual* coffee place?

- And now it's another Lena Sob Story; because this episode isn't just about the ideological battle between hope and fear, it's also a Lena vs. The World story - not so much an actual story, as a plot mechanism that will result in Lena stating where her character's at right now. It's completely incongruent with the rest of the episode, but never mind.

- Anyway, Mercy was like a big sister to her, but then Mercy and Lex broke up, and Lena never called her. Lena blames Lex for the break-up, but Mercy for the abandonment. So far, typical Lena. Oh, and they agree on some really fucked-up shit.

- "Why can't humans be as powerful as aliens?" Lena is, I'm guessing from this, planning to make metahumans on purpose. I'm certain Lena has read Mary Shelly; but, like many nerds, has completely missed the point.

- Why is Brainy on the L-Corp image inducer network? He built it himself, and did it two episodes before Lena even met him. Did he give her the design? Why is it networked anyway? Why is the hack affecting Brainy first? What is this plan?

- It doesn't fucking matter; this whole thing is so Brainy can be victim to a hate crime as part of the Metaphor For Xenophobia And Racism For White People, and then Nia can step in to help Solve Racism.

- I'm not going to claim to be an expert on women, but I'm pretty sure encouraging total strangers to investigate their personal information is... rare.

- "I'm putting a lockdown on the cloud so no-one can access the system through a computer." This is not how cloud computing works.

- It's at this point we stop the narrative so Nia can explain to one of the most powerful and influential black men that's ever lived that he does, in fact, have a lot of power and influence to make social change. She's Solving Racism!

- "You have another chance to fight for justice now," she says. Back when I was posting on the AV Club forums during season 2, the fact that James DIDN'T KNOW HE COULD DO THIS IN HIS JOB was one of the reasons we were so fucking tired of him already. He's not improved since then.

- We are back on the 'mirror' analogy that first appeared in 3x15, and it's actually quite good. I am, however, reminded of the image of Lena looking at herself in fractured glass at the start of 3x17. Lena's image of who she is has been broken, and cannot simply be repaired.

- I digress. James is worried if he does an editorial, he will seem biased. *sigh* Okay, this is gonna get ranty. Deep breaths, everyone...

- YOU ARE JIMMY OLSEN, SUPERMAN'S PAL. AN ALIEN SAVED YOUR LIFE. AN ALIEN MADE YOUR ENTIRE CAREER. AN ALIEN GAVE YOU A SIGNAL WATCH SO HE COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE SEVERAL MORE TIMES. YOU BECAME SUCH GOOD FRIENDS WITH AN ALIEN YOUR GIRLFRIEND JOKED HE WAS YOUR BOYFRIEND. YOU DEVOTED SO MUCH TIME TO ALIENS YOUR GIRLFRIEND BROKE UP WITH YOU. *TWICE*. MANY OF YOUR CURRENT FRIENDS ARE ALIENS. YOUR BEST HUMAN FRIEND - who is 'currently' busy cleaning up the mess made by one of your alien friends, helping another one of your alien friends - BRIEFLY FELL IN LOVE WITH AN ALIEN, WHO YOU HUNG OUT WITH. YOU GO TO AN ALIEN BAR SO MUCH YOU'VE FUCKING GENTRIFIED IT. THE SHIP HAS SAILED ON YOU BEING PRO-ALIEN, JIMMY. STOP BEING A MASSIVE WANKER.

- Apparently, the only way to access the Image Inducer network is through the L-Corp mainframe, which is: a) definitely not how cloud-computing works; and b) contradicted by the fact the image inducers are STILL WORKING.

- Mercy designed all of L-Corp's security. Even though they only moved to National City two years ago. Right.

- "This is more innovative and imaginative than even I expected." IT'S AN OFFICE BUILDING WITH BUILT-IN SKYPE. Real imagination would have been REPLACING THE FUCKING SECURITY SYSTEM.

- Why does EVERYTHING have to turn into the Glorification of Lena Luthor?

- Miss Teschmacher getting the doors to close through quick thinking has easily made her the most likeable character on the whole damn show.

- "Reporter's Honour." Okay, Kara; firstly, it's called 'off the record', and the fact that Lena doesn't really feel worried about getting that status from you is pretty much why being such close friends with her is *completely unprofessional*.

- Lena built the Lexosuit. Huh.

- ...

- What?

- She built a suit... described as an "exquisite intrument of death"... with the potential for fighting Superman... as a hobby project? Is that what happened? Or are we just going to gloss over it, like- oh, okay, we are doing that.

- "It's about doing good for the world and clearing the Luthor name." You can't clear the Luthor name, sweetie. They actually did those things. And as far as doing good for the world: that's not a plan; that a GOAL. You really need to give details. Maybe a real journalist can ask you sometime.

- "He told me they were cute and I should make them in pink." One line of dialogue, and the potentially interesting Lena/Lex dynamic has been reduced to the most boring thing imaginable. FFS.

- "I know I'm the best." Oligarch, *please*. I guess it helps that Winn's in another century.

- "You've chosen a side. I'd never do that." WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? Please, someone explain.

- No one tell Mercy about that time Lena purposefully overdosed her oldest friend with Kryptonite.

- "The Luthor name doesn't deserve Lena." Why the fuck not, Supergirl? Kryptonite, Lexosuit, thinks you're full of shit; what exactly is the big thing here that separates her from them?

- Also, have you just... *forgotten* about the Kryptonite thing, or...?

- The sheer petty-minded simplicity of the wood-chips in the cup is lending weight to my 'written by Milhouse' theory.

- Huzzah! James has decided to stop being a massive wanker for a bit!

- "It is our duty as journalists to expose the truth." For long-time readers of these posts, THIS SHOW IS TROLLING ME.

- Brainy and Alex get a nice scene as part of the Metaphor For Xenophobia And Racism For White People, but I'm just left wishing we could have had more scenes like this between her and Winn. Where was *nice* Big Sister Alex when he was here?

- Supergirl's speech is lovingly earnest, and *totally unengaged* with any actual issue beyond being nice to each other, and certainly not the one where Olivia INTENTIONALLY BROKE THE LAW. This was a total failure of our institutions, not least of which, THE PRESS, for not vetting her thoroughly enough. The potential for whataboutery is high.

- Okay, for some reason, I thought they'd cast Brent Spiner in this role, not Bruce Boxleitner. Anyway, this casting is a nice bit of nerd symmetry; and makes it almost certain that President Baker is going to be revealed as a wrong'un.

- I've not talked about J'onn much, mainly because he's spent most of the episode walking around aimlessly before he can show up at the Sons of Liberty meeting.

- Agent Liberty has been described in press releases as being almost supernaturally persuasive. The actual execution of this idea is... he's actually engaged with the issue. That's it. The government *was* taken over by aliens. National City *was* attacked by aliens. The press - and I know I did a big rant in favour of this above - *is* pro-alien; and these people know it, regardless of how unbiased James was hoping to appear. It's messy, and Supergirl talking about hope is not going to cut it. It's not going to get these people jobs. It's not going to stop their nightmares. I've seen people compare how he speaks with Trump. This - this scene, at least - is not Trump. Trump isn't engaged with the issues. Trump is the end result of forty years of this shit, long after the tribal boundaries have been set in place. It's never even really mattered what Trump says. They like Trump, because Trump is *their* guy. The definitions of 'Us' and 'Them' have been around since at least the 90s, if not earlier; and Trump just made himself more 'Us' than anyone else did. And Agent Liberty is not doing that. There's an attempt, but the mask keeps him separate from his audience. Mostly, he's just recirculating the fears that they already have - that they have a *right* to have - and then pushing them towards his terrible conclusions. This isn't magic. This is basic oratory. This is the big challenge our heroes face.

- Our heroes are *so screwed*.

#notes #superglue

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88thparallel · 6 years

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Do you really believe that mofftiss know what they're doing? I mean, I hope so... but sometimes I can't believe it.

It really is a hard idea to stick to, Nonny, I totally get it.

Here are the things that help me keep the hope alive (settle in, folks, I’m about to go on a tangent):

First, S1 & S2 (and I’d argue at least some of S3) were so well done, crafted with such care by everyone involved. Gatiss and Moffat are such fanboys it is ridiculous, and I don’t think we should forget that we fell in love with this show and these characters in the first place thanks to them.

Second, I personally think it’s par for the course for show runners to keep fans in the dark. I know Mofftiss are sometimes arseholes in how they go about it, but they obviously need to keep the element of surprise (especially if they’re doing something that is truly groundbreaking and never-before-seen-on-tv like they claimed they were ::cough:: Johnlock ::cough::). They can’t tell us what they have planned, and this is not unique to these writers, this show, or the BBC.

Third, I think that the show is following a five-act structure. We’ve witnessed the good times, and now this is the crisis/conflict stage, after this comes resolution/happy ending. Read more about how this is a 5 act show here in @toxicsemicolon‘s most recent meta.

Fourth, there are too many coincidental loose ends that can’t possibly be accidents, like in HLV -- Molly tells Sherlock after he is shot: “It’s not like it is in the movies. There’s not a great big spurt of blood and you go flying backwards.” Yet that is literally exactly what happens to Mary when she is shot in T6T (the very next episode). Why would they do that unless they want to raise red flags for the viewers. It was almost comical how overblown Mary’s bullet wound was, and that was on purpose. So... why?

Same thing with the skull painting. The same painting has been a prominent mainstay of the flat at 221b for 3 seasons/series and suddenly in S4, it glows and changes colors and sometimes is completely black. Why? Mofftiss claims that it’s budget constraints with the original painting’s artist, but in the same exact series they were able to afford to film two helicopter scenes and rent an Aston Martin? I don’t buy it. There’s a reason.

We’re lucky to have a fandom full of brilliant people who like to pull at those threads and unravel the nonsense. Check out the blogs of @inevitably-johnlocked, @monikakrasnorada @mrskolesouniverse @raggedyblue @sarahthecoat @fellshish @heimishtheidealhusband @may-shepard @toxicsemicolon @marcespot @marcelock @jenna221b @tjlcisthenewsexy @consultingidiots @shylockgnomes @patiencegrenade @possiblyimbiassed @ghislainem70 @ebaeschnbliah and @sagestreet (and I’m forgetting tons, my apologies!) for some great insights and discussions.

Ever since I discovered meta I’ve been sure that there is something more meaningful coming.

If nothing else, there are too many coincidences to be accidental. Just a few examples (I could go on for days... don’t tempt me)

In TLD, Culverton Smith says (of getting away with murder) “You don’t build a beach if you want to hide a pebble; you just find a beach!” and then in the very next episode, Mycroft tells Sherlock about Eurus while flashing back to a beach covered in pebbles (which they shipped in for that scene) and then holding a pebble, which he drops onto the beach. Read more in @finalproblem‘s amazing meta here.

In TFP, the patience grenade explosion in 221b was powerful enough to blow John and Sherlock out a window (and according to Mark Gatiss, “boop they’re fine” cuz they bounced off the thin awning of Speedy’s cafe, which must also heal burns and scrapes and bruises but whatever), but it didn’t burn paper or half the things in the flat. It DID, however, destroy John’s chair. The chair that they replaced it with? John’s chair from TAB. From Sherlock’s 1800s mind palace. Arwel Wynn Jones has confirmed this.

This tale from Sherlocked Con of a discussion with Wanda Ventham from @fleurdebee legitimately haunts me.

Comments from the cast and crew that don’t make sense yet... including Louise Brealey’s tweet about Chekov’s gun

Speaking of which, you should read all of @toxicsemicolon‘s other astoundingly brilliant meta including Poetry or Truth?

Set designer Arwel Wynn Jones has trolled us (or given us clues?) many times, namely referring to elephants (”the elephant in the room”), but also the skull painting (more skull fuckery here).

Here’s a solid list of questions that @snycock came up with for Sherlocked UK that either prove that the whole cast and crew went through some sort of collective insanity for TFP, or there’s something more coming and things don’t make sense for a reason (which is what I think)

“The Lost Special”

“Mirrors” (where one character stands in for another in a scene, like Molly for John, or Culverton for John, etc.)

Imagery of both burning/fire and drowning/water

Check out my tags for more meta, it’s incredible what this fandom discovers. Most of my meta is tagged under #hope for s5 #what fresh fuckery is this #I believe in mofftiss

Ok, I’m starting to get incoherent and my browser just crashed all my tabs so I’ll leave it at that. The meta rabbit hole is deep and wide and curvy and I could probably fill a book filled with just links to other people’s brilliant findings.

I guess the main takeaway I want to leave you with is this:

I don't think two men who cared so much about this show for so long would chuck it into the toilet for no reason. The same brilliant minds that gave us villains like Moriarty, Culverton Smith, and Magnussen suddenly giving us an improbable two-dimensional psychopath in Eurus makes no sense. TFP itself makes no sense in about 100 different ways. And I don’t think any of that was an accident.

More is coming. When the Garridebs story is finally free of copyright, we’ll get our resolution. I don’t know which theory I believe but there are so many... that Eurus shot John and TFP is his dying hallucination, that Sherlock is still in his mind palace (possibly since HLV, or even earlier), that the whole thing is us seeing events through John’s blog (which was commissioned by the BBC yet often conflicts with canon), alibi theory... who knows. I’m happy to point you toward more meta, but I think the blogs I mentioned above and some of the links should start you on your way. Once the evidence starts to stack up, it’s clear... we don’t have the whole picture yet.

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aleatoryalarmalligator · 7 years

Text

Life Story Part 53

I had been looking forward to the new Willy Wonka all summer long. I knew Johnny Depp was going to be in it, and I loved him, and I also loved the old movie with Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. Sarah and I bought ourselves tickets after school one day to discover that it was quite disappointing.. It wasn't really Johnny Depp's fault entirely, though many people didn't like his performance as Willy Wonka and I didn't much care for it either – truth be told. I honestly didn't like the way it was filmed or the campy cutesy way they portrayed the children and their parents, and this has a lot to do with the fact that Tim Burton seems to have more or less lost his touch (at least in my opinion). The score was terrible and continuous. Most movie music, particularly the kind used in family films is actually kind of terrible and will kill a movie for me in the end. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the original one, and the book itself were actually quite dark in a way that the new remake failed to be. The first movie seemed symbolic of society to me, whereas the second was trying to be quirky. It wasn't that they altered the story. I understand that a new direction is creatively interesting and inevitable to any remake, but the movie itself seemed very empty. You didn't get the bleak metaphors in the second remake. You didn't get anything that compared to the colored lights playing on Gene Wilder's face as they went through the chocolate tunnel and he sang his little song.

I was also disappointed that Marilyn Manson didn't get the role of Willy Wonka. He had wanted it, but ultimately, the movie makers were too worried about making it too frightening for most viewers. Marilyn Manson would have been perfect I think. It was a movie I think that he had personally loved too much himself to mess up. And I always had loved the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a child as well, which might have been why I cared so much and was so disappointed by the end product. Whenever I find myself sad or disappointed or lonely in life, I sometimes laugh at myself and and sing Cheer Up Charlie in my head in order to mock myself.

Dare I say, I was obsessed with Marilyn Manson. I think I have mentioned this before, however he was definitely my new number one by the time I was sixteen years old. At the time, I guess I found myself drawn to him, less for his appearance, but by how misunderstood he was and how he seemed to have mastered his message and the collected and methodically he spoke and presented his ideas to people who hated him and all the hype that came with that. I read his biography – which was really more of an autobiography – only he had mostly narrated his life I think through tape recorded conversation and had someone else write it – so technically it was a biography and that inspired me a lot. It probably influenced the language, subject matter, and the way I try to tell stories to a certain extent. While it is true, there are some times in that book more towards the end where he really went too far for me, I rather appreciated the dark honesty and combination of dark comedy and intimacy about the book altogether. He spoke honestly, and that makes most people uncomfortable. I really like uncomfortable subject matter.

There were opinions that he held about creating a world of chaos and drug abuse as some kind of lash back to the postmodern world that has made many people – such as myself if I am to be honest, that I no longer agree with at all (Honestly, he probably doesn't either – the book came out in 1998). The story was very focused on him, and his own selfishness. It wasn't a cruel form of selfishness, but a very self aware one. This is something that people don't like to see in themselves, but Marilyn Manson was all about that. He was very into being driven and moving forward – which I also admired. Some of the selfish stuff he wanted to do led him to pushing himself into some creepy situations – and those are places I honestly would never go, probably because drugs were involved. The notion that you can fix society by breaking down all rules and social structure was lame – and I even thought so in my teenage wannabe-just-like-my-idols larva stage. Also, when the singer for Jack off Jill said that his guitarist Twiggy raped her, I do believe it. Marilyn Manson didn't have anything to do with that, but when you read that book, there was a very strong sense of them breaking down social rules. And there was very little place for women – because of course there generally isn't in the music business. And now, I can honestly say, I don't like Marilyn Manson's music very much. It's okay – but not great like I once thought. I still feel like he had tapped into something very real. And the book was ultimately hilarious – with his choice of phrases and words. I think it really influenced me and it might be a small part of why I am writing my own life story as I am today. And he really showed the strange looking, average people lost in a world of consumerism and shallow beauty standard, how you could transcend that. You don't have to fit a mold. You can create their own form of beauty and become a work of art, rather than accept mediocrity. This idea really revolutionized the way I looked in the mirror everyday.

Most of the time, on the drive to and fro from Kendrick to Moscow and back again in the evening, we would listen to Mudhoney a lot. The reason we liked Mudhoney so much was because we were poor. Sarah and I never had money for decent albums, and when we bought an album, we would listen to it to death. For whatever reason, Hastings had plentiful stacks of Mudhoney cds, often for only three or four dollars a piece. Had we had more money, we would have experimented, but that wasn't there for us. Buying an album was taking a chance. Neither one of us had a job, and we were at the mercy of rare handouts from our parents. So if we spent fifteen dollars on an album that sucked, it was very disappointing. But there was a certain kind of delight in listening to Mudhoney out in the farm roads of the Pallouse Hills. The members of Mudhoney themselves were very apart of the rural north west themselves. They're music seemed relevant and very close to home.

Aside from the general music we had been listening to, the mixes that I made from Danny's computer on the weekends, Marilyn Manson and Mudhoney, I discovered Bob Dylan. Sarah's mother owned the album of Blood on the Tracks. I think lyrically, it was the best thing I had ever heard. It kind of surprised me, since it was a lot more mature than what I generally wanted to listen to. Bob Dylan's unique narration of thoughts and ideas brought my own thinking to a much higher state. Over the course of that year, even though I was fond of a lot of music, Bob Dylan rose and rose in my mind. It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) to me was like a tearing apart of everything in society and expressing it for what it was, and even though I felt this dread about my life and my own future, the growing awareness of death that waits for us behind everything we see, think, do and say, about human beings as the collective and what we have been building since we came into existence, there was this serene sense of everything would be okay. That song really built a foundation for me. There were many dark nights driving home that late fall and throughout the winters, where both Sarah and I would listen to that song in the dark winding roads in rural farm fields well off the highway. Something about the way we would listen to that, and the fact that even though we were a ways out from Moscow, you could still see the light's of the city miles away playing on the dark clouds that loomed above us. Bob Dylan introduced me to the abyss.

Sarah was still very much apart of the CKY internet forum, but she seemed to have left the business of commenting on the forum and arguing with the pointless trolls on there, since it was mostly composed of obnoxious abusive assholes who just hated women, and she had singled out a few friends over the internet that she liked to correspond with online. One of these friends was a fellow who lived over in Georgia. His name was Alex, he was two years older than Sarah and I, and he seemed rather intelligent. He played in a hardcore punk band. Even though he knew a lot of people who considered him a friend, he didn't consider many other people his friend. Sarah was maybe the first real friend he seemed to have. Tough he played in this punk band, he preferring more melodic and organized sounding classic rock/pop music like The Beatles or Paul Simon, and mostly just played in the band he was in for the experience and because his friends were into it. There were parts of the concerts where Alex would rap. He enjoyed writing, and he was far far better at expressing himself that either Sarah or I were. He had skills as an orator.

He also had a substance abuse problem with cough syrup. He took other drugs, and I think over the course of that year he ended up getting into some legal trouble. He was given a counselor, and the counselor betrayed his trust and told his parents what he had done. So there was a lot of that. And then at some point that year, even though he had straight A's and could graduate, he ended up punching one of his friends while they were doing some school project and he got kicked off and went for a GED instead. I never spoke to him. But Sarah talked to him all the time, and she would tell me these things – so by extension, I felt we were friends in an odd way.

It was Alex who got Sarah into Queens of the Stone Age and into Mark Lanegan. Half the time, I was wanting to listen to Hole, Marilyn Manson, mixed cds, and Bob Dylan, Sarah wanted to listen to Queens of the Stone Age and Mark Lanegan. Mark Lanegan, though not a household name, is a well respected singer and songwriter. He initially was in a band called Screaming Trees in the early nineties, had been a friend to Kurt Cobain, and eventually went solo, got clean off of heroin, and his music drastically became far more folk inspired. His voice is distinctly low and raspy. He's compared to Tom Waits a little bit – though they are still quite different. He is a very tall, very serious looking. I mention these details about Mark Lanegan because when Sarah found Mark Lanegan, she became crazy obsessed with him.

Queens of the Stone Age gave our trips to school and particularly back from school, this very particular sound. The album Songs For the Deaf made me feel like we were hundreds of miles away from humanity. Outside the small 1979 Honda Civic, the world was a dark place and we might have been the only two people who existed, Sarah and I – since it was usually night time by the time we got out of school later on as the fall played into the winter. Sarah would also listen to Mark Lanegan's new album at the time, Bubblegum and it's EP cousin Here Comes That Weird Chill. It's a really great record, the both of them, very blues inspired but also very indirectly – dark, bassy and minimalist and lyrically strong. Sarah was madly in love with Mark Lanegan. And we used to laugh about this -as Mark Lanegan was in his forties, and Sarah a sixteen year old girl. He became such an ingrained part of her identity that it's still very much a part of who she is.

Aside from these nights driving home, and the time we put in at school, or the time at home where we would sometimes still have fights that ended in us both crying and falling asleep, we would once a month afford to eat lunch at the China Buffet in the mall. We had so little money, and our parents didn't have much to give for us to eat out. Sarah often was the one who bought us lunch. I don't know if my father or mother can truly appreciate just how often Sarah had to use her chore money to feed the both of us. Today, I kind of look suspiciously at the China Buffet's food – excluding the added fact that I don't consume animal products anymore. It's far far far too cheap and that makes me suspicious since I know they are still churning a profit most of the time. Most of it isn't truly or strictly Chinese – more loosely Americanized Chinese inspired foods and if you want better quality Chinese/Thai/Korean/Japanese food it's better to just look up the reviews online and go to a real restaurant. In any case, it was six dollars a piece for us to eat there, and neither one of us ever even had that much to pay for food – which is kind of hard for me to believe now. Six dollars to me then is like sixty to me now.

I remember there was a weekend when Samantha, who I had not seen much since leaving Kendrick, who was still dating Adam, invited Sarah and I to do to the movies with her, a silly romantic comedy called Failure to Launch with Matthew Mcconaughey. For some reason, I didn't think I needed to pay my own way. Samantha was annoyed with me, and angrily paid for my ticket. I felt badly, in predictable fashion. In the end, I more or less remember Samantha most as someone who was always annoyed with me for my personal failings at being adultlike. After the movie was over, we were driving home, and Samantha and Adam were just ridiculous. They were fighting about nothing essentially. It's something couples do often, and I've never fully understood it. Samantha was being kind of quiet, and Adam was going 'what's wrong Sam??', and Samantha would huff and say 'Nothing....'. He would implore that something must be wrong, because she's 'being all weird'. I didn't see the weirdness personally, but whatever. She seemed to be playing like she was upset, but was hiding something from him, and he was vying to find out what that something was, trying to drive and get some strong eye contact in there. Meanwhile, Sarah and I are sheepishly in the back seat watching all this go down as the dark silhouettes of Samantha and Adam continued on and on this way.

It was like they were fake fighting. Samantha was talking in a high pitched voice. Nobody was saying anything. And then at some point one of them would accuse the other one of not loving them anymore, but of course it was said not like it was a real problem, but like a way to manipulate the other. Then they would sort of weepily banter back and forth. In the end, Adam would put on Styx's Lady in the car stereo, and they would begin making out like it had never happened. I came to the conclusion that neither one of them knew the other at all. For them, like many many people, being in a relationship and being in love is more pushing one another's buttons looking for reactions. There is a lot of power stuff going back and forth. I can't say I am one of those people or not. I never feel like I am looking to press buttons, but I probably am – I may be the worst.

On the weekends, we were at Danny's very small one bedroom house. It was very small – I cannot express that enough. My mom and Danny slept in the bedroom. David was set up in this small hallway TV room to play Danny's bad video games – like American Choppers and other biker related games that nobody really liked but Danny. Allison slept on the floor or a very small loveseat. And I slept in a recliner in the living room, but I would generally be on the computer until three or four in the morning trying to find decent songs to burn. The house was small, and it was also very muggy. Most of the time, my mother and Danny were gone. Nobody was in a good mood, but none of us fought either. I remember awkwardly asking Danny if he wanted to use his computer when he would get off after work, and he would say no, but would sort of mean yes.

What confused me, was that it was clear that we were taking up his space. We took up the televisions, we took up the computer. We probably took up the bathroom and the refrigerator. He wasn't really rude to us about it, but he didn't seem to enjoy it either. And yet, when my mother had found her own place, and was making good money as a bartender, he had demanded that she move in with him and quit her job. He didn't want her working at the bar anymore, because he didn't want her being ogled at by drunk men. So she took a job at a boy's home. It was this place that they sent mentally ill boys between the ages of fourteen and twenty two. You had to have done something criminal to be in there. It wasn't quite an insane asylum, nor was it quite juvy. It was a little bit of both. A few times while my mother was working there, she got knocked down by the boy's who were stronger than her, and beaten up a bit. It was a very rough job and the pay wasn't good, though she did seem to like it a lot.

But, as I mentioned earlier. Almost all my time was devoted to school work. By November, I was just beginning to get the hang of this school thing. I was finally becoming somewhat receptive to Mike teaching me, and I felt rather special. Most people would have thought that an alternative school education would be deluded and easier than the main public schools. Actually, the alternative school was much more challenging, and even more rewarding. Mike didn't like testing at all. He never used it except in the rare occasion where the state demanded it. Personally, he didn't like grades, though he understood that they gave an indication of how you were doing. All he really wanted you to do is learn how to think critically about ideas. And I was starting to trust Mike and Jenni a lot. I trusted them more than I had ever trusted most adults. Mike and Jenni at home had a son and a daughter. I remember their daughter's name was Sunshine. Both of them had bright smiling faces, their parents actually seemed to want a little more than to keep them fed and clothed. In fact, they didn't exist solely for their parent's benefits at all. The point of their existences was for them to become capable strong adults. They actually cared how their kids were getting on in life and how they coped with things. Mike and Jenni would pool up the money they made every school year, and they would take that money, get visas for the whole family and visit places in Europe and South America every summer. They seemed incredibly happy – living somehow in a world that I could never truly belong in. And yet, Mike obviously at the same time was able to take on a lot of philosophical issues and to face very harsh realities of humankind, and we were always there to remind him of that.

I could not help but feel a little bit jealous of their family. Not that I was crazy envious about it, but I really was beginning to care a lot about Mike and Jenni and what they thought of my own future. Dare I say it, the little rebellious satanist that I was secretly wanted their approval quite a bit. I wanted them to see great potential in me and to care about me like I was one of their own smiling happy kids. But I obviously wasn't. No matter how many books I read or how much I wrote, I was still very much a member of my own clan. Internally, I felt like a sick little creature that lingered on the outskirts of their happy home. Metaphorically, I, as the sickly thing, on a cold winter night would stare into the the household of their happy family and long to be one of them as they ate dinner or sat around a Christmas Tree (the image that comes to mind). But of course, that could never be.

Understandably of course, Mike had this wall towards his students becoming too close. And it seemed painfully unfair to me, even though it was the only way that this school could function. He broke layers and walls up in his students, but they could never really get to know him. He didn't lie to anyone exactly, just pushed students away subtly at any hint that they were getting to be that way. It was a mindfuck and it could hurt your feelings if you were vulnerable. He knew that he had a very strong affect on his students and he was afraid he would meet an especially vulnerable student one day who would either kill themselves, and break his heart a bit, or get confused about the nature of their teacher-student relationship. He also wanted us to be self sufficient. It was contradictory, but in order to try to help us to helping ourselves, he had to get inside of our minds. He knew what he was doing. Jenni and him had met in high school. They went to college together and eventually got married. They were incredibly close, and I venture to guess that while Jenni was taking psychology courses, Mike learned second hand from her and was using it on his students to retrain us. He was obsessively curious about that kind of stuff.

What I did always find strange, and what I eventually found out was that Mike and Jenni were extremely religious. Mike was very decent about not mixing his Christianity with his teaching. He taught about human truths that went to the core of the human spirit so to speak, but he did so in a way that an atheist could understand as easily as a religious person could. I respected Mike enough not to challenge him on religious grounds, but it bothered me. Mike was very much dedicated to real true debate and expressing your ideas. He wanted his students to know how to debate like pros. So I found it strange that he had decided to believe in the bible so heavily. He questioned none of it. Or at least, I really imagined that he didn't. I found out offhandedly from Jenni that both of them believed the first testament when it said that there was a time when men grew to be a thousand years old, and the world was only about six thousand years old at that. It was preposterous. Mike even played guitar in the church band.

I am quite certain that Mike converted to Christianity because of Jenni. I am not saying he didn't believe it. I think he did. But it was much more of a struggle for him than it was for her – not for reasons of wanting to sin or anything like that, but because he had to at some point shut his mind off and have faith in something without question. I knew that, because Mike tended to challenge concepts a lot. And as I was still in my first year atheist stage, I really wanted to question him. But I promised myself I wouldn't.

All the same, I learned a lot about Christianity indirectly in a way that created greater complexity for me and my schemas about what it meant to be Christian. For one thing, we often think about fundamentalist Christians as being the Pro-Trump types. They tend to vote right wing, have a mistrust for education, they tend to be either stingy and rich, or hopelessly poor. We see them in the political arena often, holding their signs against abortion, gay marriage. Mike – though I think it was a contradiction, was not against gay people. Jenni might have been, but Mike was not. If he had a problem with it, it didn't seem to create any sort of riff in his mind. I never asked him in specific detail about what he thought, but it was clear that this was a nonissue for him. He was much more privately adamant about evolution not being how we came to be what we are than he was about God hating gay people.

I once asked him about abortion. I didn't ask him because I wanted to fight, and at first I had to assure him this was not the case. What I really wanted was to ask someone who would be obviously caught in the middle – having strong ties to the liberal education system and the church. His answer was that he personally only in his own conception of the world could not imagine not wanting to have the baby. He just saw life as a blessing and human beings as being primarily good – so only good could come from a new baby in the world. But he let me know that this was just him. He was not about to say that he was the ultimate authority of what should and should not happen in the world. He felt it was a woman's place to make the decision and it was between them and their own truths. He could not possibly comprehend what everyone's situation or reality is like. And I really respected that answer. Obviously, the benefits to being in his shoes probably would have made having children not such a bad thing and he was fully willing to admit that he had a personal bias for himself that he and Jenni both agreed with. But he wasn't getting in anyone else's business.

Another interesting thing I learned from him came from the time I asked him about what he felt about the division of church and state. I knew vaguely that there were a lot of politicians who wanted to combine Christianity with government policies, and most hardcore Christians were all for it. When I asked him about it, he explained something to me that I hadn't really thought of before. Mike really didn't want religion and government to combine at all. He didn't feel like any of it had to do with being close to god or being enlightened by Jesus. And aside from opposing it on the grounds of religion having a way of corrupting our civil liberties, he actually felt that government made religion worse too. It was intrusive to his spiritual life. He didn't want government in his religion. He respected those boundaries because he felt the idea of government being mixed with his personal faith actually tampered with his relationship with god and brought it down to earthly places. I keep these conversations in mind, because even though I am not a Christian at all, I felt that his answers were well thought out and what I wish more Christians were like.

Mike also taught us about Islam and Judaism in an incredibly fair way. We spent two weeks studying Islam, reading texts – in a secular way. We watched several documentaries on the history of Islam. Mike had no problem with Muslims, and in fact had many Muslim friends who he respected. This isn't to say that Mike gave us the whole truth about Islam, but he basically gave us a much clearer view of the religion as a whole. All in all, it's equally as violent as the bible is. To a degree however, when I compared the two religions, I actually found myself gravitating towards Islam the most. I wasn't by any means dropping my atheistic views. But I could see certain elements of Islam that resonated more deeply with me. Their idea of God felt more in depth than the Christian god. I admired how they represented their idea of God through architecture. Not that I don't love a good rosary or catholic cathedral – I do. But when you are trying to conceive of something as profound as the creator of all beings alive or dead, some all knowing consciousness that lays beyond time and space itself, than the design and math that is used in Islamic architecture fits better with my idea of how one should go about thinking of it. With Christian architecture, it often feels like you are looking less to the heavens than you are to yourself.

Anyway, I am very happy that I was introduced to religion in this way. It didn't so much change my views about God, but gave me a greater appreciation for the fables and stories that resonate with people. I felt for the first time in my life, connected to people who lived thousands of years before me, and I think it grounded me in the history of my own existence, what it really means to be alive, to pursue truth for truth's sake, to actually want to make the world a better place for more than just myself, and to harness beauty. It put in motion a need to find meaning behind everything.

After the first quarter there was supposed to be a parent-teacher conference. Even though it had only been a few months, and even though I still occasionally saw my father for a rare three or four hours a week – I wanted him to come to this conference. I wanted him to see how much better I was doing in school. Given what a academic failure I had grown into being over the previous seven years, I wanted him to sort of acknowledge that I was flipping things around. He promised he would show up. But of course, he forgot. My father was desperately trying to find a way to hide the pain of Patty's death. He was online dating again, more as a distraction I suppose than a genuine need to be close to anyone. After Patty, there was a string of forty or so women he would talk to for a time. Most of these relationships never went past the telephone, and I cannot even remember them all. You could pick up a phone book and just start naming off women, and many of those names would come to mind as the name of someone my father online dated for a time.

And when he wasn't doing that, he was buying speakers and musical equipment on the internet. Rooms of our house were beginning to fill up with speakers. He became so emphatic about certain products that he would spend hours on the phone, till he eventually was talking to CEO's of these companies. And even stranger still, my bald conservative father who had accused me of being high for a few years at this point, who loved listening to conservative talk radio for five hours straight most days, decided that it was fine for he himself to hang out with the druggy crowd of teenage boys in town. It was a strange sight for me, and I didn't know what to think about it. I was mostly too busy learning in school, but I observed it from a distance and had to scratch my head.

Sarah's mother did showed up to the school for the conference that day, so I got a ride home with her and Sarah – thankfully. Carol and Sarah might have felt a little bad for me. There is something incredibly disappointing about being forgotten or stood up. I remember we went out to a Mexican restaurant afterwards that made very tasty salsa and homemade chips, and I cheered up somewhat after that.

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nofomoartworld · 7 years

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Hyperallergic: The Violence of the 2017 Whitney Biennial

Jordan Wolfson’s “Real Violence” (2017) on display at the 2017 Whitney Biennial (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic unless otherwise noted)

All art is political, so I don’t see this year’s Whitney Biennial as any more or less engaged with the terrain of politics than the institution’s previous biennials. What it’s more focused on is hybrid identities, particularly those not represented by the Trump administration or a political party that has gerrymandered its way to minority rule. Curators Christopher Lew and Mia Locks have given us an engaging, if uneven, Whitney Biennial. While this event may no longer offer an accurate barometer of that nebulous thing called American art, it does offer an artistic essay about the times.

There’s a real emphasis on representation and notions of truth here, which take on a new urgency at a time when “fake news,” the weaponization of “identity politics,” and nativist xenophobia are on the rise. The abstractions that influence our perceptions of reality are being scrutinized, and rightfully so. But perhaps the most notable theme of the exhibition is violence — its portrayal and circulation, and the systems of oppression that support it. Unfortunately, the biennial fails to probe violence in international theaters of war, prioritizing the way it’s acted out within US borders; that is only one aspect of a much larger story.

I would suggest that at the core of the biennial’s take on the depiction of violence are four works that explore the topic in their own way: Jordan Wolfson’s “Real Violence” (2017), which quickly became a conversation piece; Dana Schutz’s “Open Casket” (2016), which is already a focus of protests; Henry Taylor’s “THE TIMES THAY AINT A CHANGING, FAST ENOUGH!” (2017), which looks at the shooting of Philando Castile, livestreamed by his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, on Facebook; and Postcommodity’s “A Very Long Line” (2016), which is part of a broader focus by the three-person collective on the violence of borders and colonialism.

After the initial shock of watching a white man bash in what appears to be another white man’s head on a contemporary Western street, Wolfson’s VR work feels surprisingly hollow, supplementing the stereotype of a white male interest in violence bred by ennui. The fact that both figures are white is not incidental — it points to Wolfson’s fixation on whiteness in his continuing work about violence. Artist Ajay Kurian (who’s also included in the biennial) wrote about Wolfson’s “Colored Figure” (2016) last year, identifying a “breed of white males who believe they are persecuted while being the aggressor, and are powerful while maintaining a sense of painful fragility” as one of the overarching themes in the US today. Here, like in Wolfson’s previous work, the white body is on display, but the larger question is whether it functions to universalize the scene or mar it in a feedback loop, providing us with a GIF of violence that feels difficult to escape once we’re confronted with it.

The aestheticization that takes place in “Real Violence” is deeply disturbing. Wolfson seems to be trying to transfer the ultra-violence of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971) or David Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983) — or even Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible (2002) — to VR, but he contributes little to the conversation; all those movies tackled the topic with far more sophistication and, frankly, gore. This is violence reduced to a formal concern, as if the context could ever be removed. The fact that Wolfson tries to couch it in a Jewish tradition, playing a Hebrew prayer over the scene, is equally off-putting. It shows a removal from the threat, violence abstracted into an idea.

The perceived — not actual — threat of random violence is at the core of white supremacy, and it’s often used as a justification for continuing violence against non-white populations. We have seen this at work recently with President Trump’s executive order announcing the publication of a weekly blotter of crimes committed by immigrants (aka “removable aliens”): the perceived threat of terrorism becomes an excuse for further violence against those who are often fleeing it. The feedback loop distorts our perception.

Yet violence is real for many of us, not an abstraction. Western imperialism and white supremacy destroy whole cities, push millions of refugees into desperate conditions, criminalize entire populations, and mine resources — human and otherwise — for their own benefit. To say that Wolfson’s position is detached from the ecosystem of violence is an understatement; it evokes the puerile outbursts of gamergate trolls, removed from the conditions of the real world and paralyzing the viewer with a threat they’re powerless to control. Dana Schutz’s “Open Casket” (2016) suffers from similar problems, but it also reveals the inability for most painting to render pain and history.

Dana Schutz’s “Open Casket” (2016) (photo by Benjamin Sutton for Hyperallergic)

In 1955, Emmett Till was lynched in Mississippi after being falsely accused of flirting with a white woman. He was only 14. His mother, Mamie Till Bradley, insisted on having an open-casket funeral, and the graphic photographs of his body that were printed in the media are credited with helping to catalyze the civil rights movement. Schutz’s painting is based on one of them. What she couldn’t have foreseen while making it is that last month, the now 82-year-old woman responsible for the accusation, Carolyn Bryant Donham, would finally admit that she’d fabricated the story that killed Till. That fact adds another troubling layer to Schutz’s painting.

The portrayal of violence, and particularly this type of extreme disfigurement of a victim, is difficult to look at, and the artist’s choice to paint it is particularly strange. The image is particularly troubling because a white woman’s fictions caused the murder of the young man, and now a white female artist has mined a photograph of his death for ostensible commentary, which in reality does little to illuminate much of anything. What is Schutz contributing to the imagery or story of Till, or to the rendering of violence? The position of the contemporary artist is one of precarious privilege, but here the artist appears to have absolved herself by refusing to implicate herself in the image, preferring to let the history of the image, and her painterly additions, make the case for her. Removed from culpability, she has instead used Till’s brutalized likeness as a way to explore painterly technique, and without consulting the title, most people would likely not even recognize the subject. What does this do? How does the subject work here? How is this not a form of exploitation?

It’s notable that another of Schutz’s paintings, “Fight in an Elevator” (2016), renders an altercation between two African-American celebrities, Jay Z and his sister-in-law, Solange Knowles, as a jumble of forms. While the Whitney Biennial catalogue cites the actual subject of the painting, its wall label offers no such insight. Instead, we’re simply told:

… figures are seen embroiled in a struggle, both with themselves and with larger-than-life insects, denoting a state of anxiety and alarm. The work (whose dimensions mirror those of the Museum’s larger freight elevator nearby) plays with time, as action and gesture appear suspended. Like a truncated history painting, an epic scene is glimpsed between two doors that may be closing or opening. Schultz deploys the transitional space of the elevator as a metaphor for other social spaces that are at once public and private, intimate and estranging, inviting us to consider our own position or role amid the chaos.

Here, the source imagery is erased, as Schutz renders piles of body parts in oil on canvas. The white artist again gives us a fragmented portrayal, breaking black and brown bodies apart, removing their features, and rearranging them at will in a formal way. Her failure in adding any insight or to seeing why this might be offensive is the essence of that popular artspeak term, “problematic.”

Henry Taylor’s “THE TIMES THAY AINT A CHANGING, FAST ENOUGH!” (2017) (photo by Benjamin Sutton for Hyperallergic)

Unlike Schutz’s “Open Casket,” Henry Taylor’s painting about violence against African Americans, this time by the police, is less gratuitous and more successful. It starts by giving us a straightforward and identifiable view of the infamous scene in a car that was livestreamed to thousands of people online.

In Taylor’s painting, Philando Castile slouches in his seat as officer Jeronimo Yanez points a gun at him. The perpetrator’s arm is lightened, while the victim’s eyes look upwards and his wound is removed, replaced by splashes of yellow and black paint. This gesture emphasizes the fiction of the painting itself and reflects a self-conscious understanding that the artist’s image can never compare to the original. How can you compete with something as raw and immediate as that livestream? Here, the artist does his part by tending to the wound in the best way he knows how.

Inside the room that displays Postcommodity’s “A Very Long Line” (2016)

What’s more, by freezing a moment of the raw footage, Taylor is able to plug the incident into a larger system of violence. He highlights the importance of it happening in a car, that great symbol of what some would describe as American freedom. Here, any sense of safety in the vehicle is destroyed by faceless state violence, which reaches in to kill. We’re given the perspective of Diamond Reynolds, but it’s clear that the man with the gun is oblivious — or apathetic — to the viewer’s presence. But even here the tendency to stereotype slightly calcifies the composition, offering us insight at arms distance.

That distancing is more pronounced in the immersive four-channel video by Postcommodity, which envisions the border between the US and Mexico as an enclosure or sorts. The violence of state-sponsored division, which has cut through indigenous lands, severed once unified communities of color, and been bolstered by dangerous nationalistic rhetoric, is shown as a continuous horizon pan. Fences obscure our view, and we’re left wondering whether we’re standing on the inside or outside — what side of the border do we naturally associate with? The fragmentation is smartly devised to disorient us. The border, which is often portrayed as a fixed, physical site, becomes more psychological, leaving us frustrated by the fact that there’s no way around or through it.

Aliza Nisenbaum’s “La Talaverita, Sunday Morning NY Times” (2016) (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic unless otherwise noted)

In addition to these four works that portrayal violence in different ways, I would add Aliza Nisenbaum’s “La Talaverita, Sunday Morning NY Times” (2016) since it doesn’t directly portray violence but inserts it as a ghostly presence through the pages of the New York Times. Nisenbaum’s painting, maybe inadvertently, captures the distance readers (or viewers) face in regards to their subject. It is a welcome commentary on our desire to create meaning in the everyday. The intimacy of the two figures overwhelms any looming danger contained on the pages. She treats the news as a casual undertaking, part of a personal ritual, half distracted and somewhat choreographed for those around us.

Despite the different ways they succeed and fail, all of these images raise one consistent question: who is being held responsible for the violence they depict? And, I would add, how do we start fixing that?

We can’t pretend that images of violence don’t have an impact on a very personal level. We can’t close our eyes to the cycles of pain that these systems continue to feed on. The challenge of today is to engage with images that we find difficult, painful, and complicated. Artists can imagine the world any way they want, but we also have a responsibility as viewers, critics, patrons, and others to respond, take action, and challenge them when they reveal something that we find particularly troubling. Often art mines our collective consciousness to demonstrate a truth, other times it reveals a breakdown in a system that refuses to mend its wounds or recognize new perspectives. Museums are no longer the rarefied sites that demand we listen. Sometimes we must talk back. Maybe this is one way to begin:

At the Whitney, a protest against Dana Schutz' painting of Emmett Till: "She has nothing to say to the Black community about Black trauma." http://pic.twitter.com/C6x1JcbwRa

— Scott W. H. Young (@hei_scott) March 17, 2017

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