Dunno I but I actually feel kinda sad when I see people talking about Gojo like he's some kind of bad person etc etc😩 maybe I take it personally but how can I not when I love him so much😢 do you have such feelings?

No, I get you 😭 it's kind of frustrating to see how often he gets mischaracterized.

Okay so here’s the Ted Lasso theory that no one asked for that I just can’t seem to let go of: I think the crux of this season is Ted’s fear that he is becoming his father.

Wow I know that seems like it comes out of nowhere, but hear me out. The show has been showing Ted’s drinking increasing slowly but steadily as the series continues. It’s been subtle, but there have been moments where it’s felt important that Ted’s drinking be noticed by the viewer. It felt as though this peaked in this episode (2x07), an inordinate division of time seemed to be allocated to the scene of Ted in the pub drinking that second beer; relying on alcohol to soften a hard day. But this wasn’t the only mention of Ted’s drinking in 2x07. While the reference was hidden within a typical folksie Ted story that leaves the audience unsure of how seriously they should take it, he mentions passing out after drinking too much beer while watching citizen Kane during his story about two day old stew. Now, I don’t know if I’m reading too much into this BUT if you look at coach Beard’s face in that moment, he doesn’t look amused like he usually does at Teds antics. He almost looks concerned. Unusual for someone who’s generally shown to be so very in tune with what Ted means.

But what does this mean? Well, I think it might be connected to Ted’s therapy and his father.

Now, we don’t know too much about Ted’s dad. All we know is that he died when Ted was 16, and that he used to take Ted to a sports bar with him every weekend until he passed away. It’s really not too much to go on. So what else do we know? Well we know that Ted hates therapists, he doesn’t believe they genuinely care about/are able to help their patients—so much so that he becomes enraged when simply talking to Dr. Sharon, something very out of character for him. We also know he goes above and beyond to make people feel good and heard when he speaks to them, so much of his charm seems to be his desire to share a genuine connection with everybody he meets. Also interestingly in this episode was his very vocal dedication to ‘never give up on anything’. And this wasn’t the first time we’ve heard this mantra. He mentioned it when he agreed to the divorce with Michelle—one of the most emotional scenes we’ve seen of Ted to date. But how does this all tie together?

‘Believe’ he tells the team. ‘I believe in believe.’ To believe so passionately in belief, who did you have to see fail without it? What did you have to go through with only belief to get you through?

Well … and bear with me here … I think when he was 16, Ted’s father may have committed suicide.

It just seems understandable that in the event of his Dad’s death in this way, Ted felt abandoned and let down by his father. It would even make sense of his anger towards therapy if his father (and/or he himself as a child/his mother) received therapy that Ted views as having had no impact on them; let down when he needed it most by help that didn’t help. ‘I promise you, there is something worse out there than being sad, and that is being a l o n e and being sad.’ How many times have we heard Ted utter the words ‘I appreciate you’. Over and over again, never allowing anyone to doubt their importance or their contribution. And what did he say to Beard: “I love meeting people's moms. It’s like reading an instruction manual as to why they're nuts”.

I even think this may be the cause of his panic attacks too. Now I know the first panic attack we see Ted having was to do with his divorce, but what we (and Ted) heard underneath ‘let it go’ (a song from a CHILDS movie) was not Michelle’s voice, but Henry’s … the son he feels he is abandoning. Now if he still views himself as having abandoned his son, and his drinking is increasing it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to imagine he’s beginning to see similarities between himself and his father. I know I’m making quite a big assumption about his fathers drinking habits, but in all honesty, who else would take a 10 year old child to a sports bar EVERY weekend? (I think there may be a ‘father was a coach’ (… Led Tasso anyone?) element to it too—the darts, the way Jamies fathers screaming so obviously effected and stuck with him, the way he was scared while winning that match, ‘you may think you’re the only one who can see who he really is, but you’re not’—but it hasn’t quite clicked for me yet the way everything else has). The second panic attack I initially believed to be stress related, and I do still believe that, but what if it hit deeper than that. Again the voice playing through his head is not a soundbite about how Richmond needs to win to make it back into the premier league, but rather it’s a memory of Jamie’s father angrily telling him ‘you’re better than that!’, followed by Henry’s awed voice when meeting Jamie. Fathers and sons, and sons and their fathers … always at the heart of his panic.

Even Nate’s storyline itself this season, filled with so much anger and change, seems to be centring around the impact of Nate’s father’s actions on Nates perception of himself and his own actions. It just … well … it seems to coincidental for a show that seems to value its characters so dearly.

When he’s talking to Dr. Sharon, he mentions the ‘gory details’ of his life: ‘the fights, the mistakes, [his] deep dark secrets’. Again I don’t believe he’s talking about Michelle. Not wholly. There seems to be too much tied up in his ability to coach, protect, and connect. His assertion multiple times that ‘wins don’t matter’ when talking with Beard earlier in the series personifies this. Ted is in coaching for the people, not the wins, so why would the potential of a loss or win impact him so much. I feel like I may be reaching again, but still, with the show making the connections between fathers and sons in his panic attack during the game, it makes me think that this mentality, and the way he views coaching, is connected to his father.

A reason for him to so desperately hold onto a lack of significance around the usual primary objective of his profession would seem to be exposure to the negative side of the consequences of that world of thought. Ted views a single minded desire to win as a negative. He values player mental health above all else. I just can’t let the feeling go that this is extremely significant, more so than Ted just being the genuine guy he is. I think people who feel this way to this extreme, in these circumstances especially in this profession, usually have a serious reason why. I think Ted blames himself. I think Ted blames his father. I think he’s pushed it down more than he ever thought. And I think it’s all coming up now.

Now that he’s caring about winning. Now that (in his mind) he’s left his son behind. Left his wife behind. Left his responsibilities behind. And he can’t burden anyone with those feelings. Because he feels it’s his job to make sure no one ever feels that burden again.

Newtmas essay when?

Finally getting to this, thanks for waiting, I needed to go over a few bookmarks. (Warning, this post contains spoilers from the MAZE RUNNER book and FEVER CODE book, so if you haven’t read either or yet and want the jist of my analysis; just know that in general the fandom interpreting Newt as gay before it was revealed on a twitter post was not just a random headcanon and that Thomas in general is portrayed to have very strong unconditional love for Newt throughout the series; and it shows. To the point that even the director for the movie has stated that Newt and Thomas have a strong bond and portrays that in the movies. I will also preface that I am NOT adding personal opinion anywhere here, these are just backings from quotes and how they are thus meant to be taken/read as. My words are taken as a reader who is currently reading Scorch Trials has yet to fully read Death Cure or Crank Palace.) Anways, without further ado at 3AM today, I’ll try my best to explain how even though Dashner tries his best to make Thomas have other, female love interests; he creates a not so subtle gay subtext for Tommy boy here when in the context of interacting with Newt throughout the lore. Apologies beforehand for any grammar mistakes along the way.

To commence, I am going to start with FEVER CODE, as its supposed to act as the story’s preface to the actual events that play out later. Newt and Thomas upon meeting each other describe their presence as “familiar” and or as a “long lost friend” and they genuinely hit it off from the start to the point that Newt is okay with having Thomas see him cry over the fact that he and his sister are separated since he is doomed to be WCKD’s control analysis as he’s the only one lacking immunity from the flare itself. Once Newt is done being emotionally vulnerable we get our first instance of his personal nickname for Thomas: “That’s the way things are Tommy,’ he said his voice not quite steady. ‘The world outside’s gone to hell. Why should we expect any different here? [...] He said it as if they’d been friends for years” (ch. 14).   An interesting note here is that Thomas doesn’t bother to correct him or stifle the moment by feeling that all this information was too much, he genuinely wanted to hear Newt out and is fine with seeing this side of him; if not slightly taken aback by how natural it is that they can converse about such aspects of their lives. In fact, Newt makes such an impact on Thomas that Thomas ends up that same night dreaming of him: “Throughout his shortened night, he dreamed of Newt and Sonya. Of Newt and Lizzy“(Ch. 14). The thing with Thomas though is that the idea of comfort and connection is very foreign to him as he’s been basically isolated all his life with only the adults like Ava to talk to and the one exception being Teresa as his only kid companion. So Thomas didn’t even think he could make others like him for being himself unless they were vital to the overall production of WCKD. Seeing this portion right before the end of chapter 14: “Alby, Minho, Newt, Teresa. Thomas had friends.” shows that Thomas really had to deep dive to see how he deals with personal connections and why he was excited about the notion of friendship. He could’ve been happy with just Teresa, but only fully cemented her bond to him as “friend” when his circle grew and these kids he got to hang with taught him he can be himself, a concept he didn’t realize was possible when all his life was dictated on what he was supposed to learn or do. It becomes especially clear just how controlled his life is with the aspect of sentiment when later on Teresa’s mental communication evokes physcial pain and fear in Thomas. I’ll get back to that later as its more of a small tid bit of Thomas’ view on his forced love interest, Teresa. And yes, I say forced because multiple sentences with Thomas have him even wish he could cease all communication with her. Moving on, let’s talk about mimicking for a second. As humans, we mimic as a behavioral response to become closer to the person we care about. It’s the reason why yawning or laughter is contagious and or why we copy the posture of the person we converse with face to face. Thomas is seen to do this the most with Newt’s quirks. I’ll give the example in chapter 15: “Newt has been promising them that he was saving something special, and he did that annoying zipped-lipped sign every time [...] the little light in his eyes showed he enjoyed every second of their torture” versus Thomas: “Thomas did Newt’s zipped-lipped gesture, and that got him a sharp poke in the ribs”. So, we know enough that Thomas’ mannerisms are developing as a sign that he wants to be closer to Newt and to continue this sense of playfulness they both enjoy from the other. This is the start of their budding bond and a clear indication that they hold each other at greater fondness than the rest through this unconscious copying. Through this copying, they also pick up on emotional cues the other lets up on. Newt is especially good at noticing small things like when Thomas is anxious or overthinking: “He was just shocked that with all their exploring, the others hadn’t already discovered it on their own. And there were supposed to be TWO mazes. How had Newt and his friends not stumbled upon either one of them? ‘Tommy?’ Thomas realized Newt was staring straight at him, eyebrows raised. ‘Sorry,’ he said embarrassed, ‘wandered off for a second there what did you say?’ Newt shook his head in admonishment. ‘Try to keep up, Tommy Are you ready to see the grat outdoors?” (ch. 15). Also in chapter 23: “Tommy?’ It was Newt, breaking him out of his thoughts. ‘I can see your wheels spinnin’ up there.’ He tapped the side of his head”. This furthers Newts perceptiveness on his friend and Thomas’ ability to pick out when he is being looked after. And they bounce off each other really well in that aspect. To the point that Newt can crack a joke he knows will land right on Thomas’ sense of humor: “Newt waggled his fingers in front of Thomas’ face [...] A laugh exploded out of Thomas’ mouth that sent a spray everywhere. ‘Sorry’ he said, wiping his lips on his sleeve” (ch.15). It’s enjoyable to know that at least at a surface level, they have fun together and can cheer the other up if needed or know when to ground the other to reality. It is also through these instances that as a reader I pick up that Thomas’ nervous ticks perhaps allude to an anxiety disorder he has; of which Newt is aware of and never puts Thomas down on for exhibiting. He in fact understands it and deals with it accordingly as he himself has a similar circumstance. SO, what does all this paying attention lead to? Thomas’ devotion to protect Newt. Yeah, thats right I said devotion. Thomas’ actions are influenced by his developed instinct to protect Newt at all costs. Here is the biggest example that comes to mind: “What in the world happened to Newt? -- Less then two hours later, Thomas had spliced together a series of camera clips [...] Thomas turned off the feed. He couldn’t take it anymore...Newt, Newt, Newt, Thomas thought, feeling as if the very air around him were turning black.”(ch.52). Essentially, Thomas seeing Newt plummet to his near death by falling from the maze wall as a result of Newt’s ongoing depressive state, this is the moment that makes Thomas realize WICKD isn’t as good as they seem and that he is going into the maze to save Newt. Its admirable how much self sacrifice Thomas does for someone he cares so much about, to the point that their name is like a mantra. Thats a sensible area of passion and fighting spirit for someone who is “just a friend”.    Oh and, the feeling of fondness is mutual mind you if I haven’t been clear. After experiencing the horrors of cranks for the first time, realizing Newt was not immune, and watching Newt until they entered the pits it has been months since they last interacted; this is their first reunion: “What’s up Tommy?’ Newt exclaimed, his face filled with genuine happiness at the pleasant surprise that’s been sprung on him. Thomas couldn’t remember exactly how long it’d been since he’d seen Newt. ‘You look bloody fantastic for three in the morning” (ch. 23). I need to preface this that Newt DOES NOT mean that sarcastically and that out of all the people in the room (Minho, Chuck and Teresa are there in this scene), Thomas only reacts this way specifically toward seeing Newt is okay and back.   The characters are also not afraid of being physically close. “Well, look who the bloody copper dragged in,’ Newt said, pulling Thomas into a big hug” (ch.31), “They shook hands, and then the two of them set off...” (ch. 31), and my favorite: “Thomas jumped at the sound, then stumbled. Newt tripped over him, and then they were both laughing, legs and arms tangled in a pile on the ground”(ch.32). I don’t think this far in the novel, Thomas has been AS (emphasis on as) comfortable with touch  with anyone else other than Newt. And thats a big step forward on the aspect of trust in a relationship, being able to be comfortable with the presence of another person enough to be as intimate with them as shown here.  And all this, is just fever code itself. Mind you this is not the MEAT of the novels as it came out later. But even without it, lets look at Thomas in Maze now, I’ll try to keep this segment a lot more brief. Here’s Thomas looking respectively at boys his age: “A tall kid with blond hair and a square jaw...a thick, heavy muscled Asian kid folded his arms as he studied Thomas, his tight shirtsleeves rolled up to show off his biceps [...] Newt was taller than Alby too, but looked to be a year or so younger, His hair was blond and cut long, cascading over his T-shirt. Veins stuck out of his muscled arms”(ch. 2). Thomas’ initial reaction to being surrounded by boys is to deeply analyze their rugged good looks and heavily emphasize their best physical traits. When reading this the first time, my mind immediately thought this boy at the very least is supposed to be portrayed as bi, especially when later down the line Teresa gets a similar descriptor: “...despite her paleness, she was really pretty...silky hair, flawless skin, perfect lips, long legs.” So right off the bat, we know that be it boy or girl, Thomas emphasizes how attractive someone looks in his eyes when he truly does have a sense of attraction to them. Case closed. Within the same chapter we get Thomas also immediately clinging onto Newt for a sense of grounding, it is now ingrained in him at this point that the boy is his lifeline, a person to rely on. “Thomas looked over at Newt, hoping for help.” And help he does, Newt in this chapter helps ease his worries, explain a general idea of what the glade is and even pats him on the shoulder a bit to ease tension. And Thomas doesn’t bat an eye in the same way he’s weary of literally everyone else. In fact, he’s eager to stay put with him as shown with; “If Newt went up there, then I wanna talk to him.” And if none of that seals the deal, we got early bird Newt being so touch starved he flattens himself next to Thomas to wake him up at the crack of Dawn in chapter 6: “Someone shook Thomas awake. His eyes snapped open to see a too-close face staring down at him, everything around them still shadowed by the darkness of early morning...’Shh, Greenie. Don’t wanna be waking up Chuckie, now, do we?’ It was Newt --the guy who seemed second in command; the air reeked of his morning breath. Though Thomas was surprised, any alarm melted away immediately”. This whole scene follows firstly by Thomas once again impressed by how strong Newt is and then Newt giving him a rundown of what everyone else was too afraid to show Thomas, the grievers. And you know, this scene could’ve ended well and everything as totally platonic, but then we have “Newt turned to look at him dead in the eye. The first traces of dawn had crept up on them, and Thomas could see EVERY DETAIL OF NEWT’S FACE, HIS SKIN TIGHT, HIS BROW CREASED.” Now, look me in the eye and tell me there is a hetero explanation on looking at your best bro like they are the sun reincarnated themselves. But let’s not hog all the homosexual undertones with Thomas here. Wanna know what Newt’s initial reaction to having a girl in the glade was? “It’s a girl,’ he said [...] Newt shushed them again. ‘That’s not bloody half of it,’ he said, then pointed down into the box. ‘I think she’s dead” (ch.8). It’s actually a stark contrast to the other gladers eagerly wanting to know her age, how pretty she looked, and calling dibs to date her; Newt isn’t interested in any of that, he’s more perplexed on her status and not even bothering to remark on her looks, he was the only one not to and even remarks a few other instances that girls are more Thomas’ domain. For instance, he makes a joke in fever code when Thomas remarks that the girls in the institution were going to tackle him down, Newt proceeds to point out sarcastically something along the lines of “wait, isn’t that YOUR dream though?” So Newt is pretty out spoken of his disinterest in girls, and his full admiration and attention on Thomas. Oh, and yes, Newt immediately switches over to “Tommy” the moment Thomas mentions he hates being called greenie, and once again it just becomes a thing between only the two of them. Newt is also the one to be straight forward about the whole Runners business. He warns Thomas about the dangers and doesn’t necessarily turn him down on his desire to be one, he in fact encouraged him to just wait until the right moment. “No one said you couldn’t, but give it a rest for now”(ch. 15). So once again, Newt is the voice of confidence and reason for Thomas to prosper. In turn, this time around Thomas is the one to catch when something is bothering Newt. For instance, “Newt chewed his fingernails, something he hadn’t seen the older boy do before...he was genuinely concerned -- Newt was one of the few people in the Glade he actually liked ”(ch.16). Interesting how we went from fever code “friend” to “like”. And also, when Newt explains his concern about the runners not coming back yet, Thomas pieces together how scared Newt is of the Maze without being told and goes to stand next to him as a physical presence to ground Newt as they wait near the entrance. In fact, this piece is trivial to understand why Thomas does what he does next. When everyone else had given up on the Runners still outside with 2 minutes left til closing, and Newt was escorted away from the entrance, Thomas waited. And when Thomas saw them, he yells to Newt, realizes he’s too far to do anything, and makes a decision himself. He KNEW how much Newt cared about his fellow Gladers, they were like family or “kin” as its said in the book, so what does he do? “Don’t do it Tommy! Don’t you bloody do it!’ ... Thomas knew he had no choice. He moved. Forward. He squeezed past the connecting rods at the last second and stepped into the maze”(ch.16). Yes, Thomas does this because of his empathy for the Gladers, but the chain reaction of Newt’s concern is what sets his decision in stone. And yet again, Thomas enters the maze for Newt.  And that’s pretty much the constant for the rest of Maze Runner the book, Newt just sticking up for Thomas and Thomas in turn just being happy that: “He was at least relieved that Newt was there” (ch.17). And thats basically their entire dynamic. Newt just going: “If you really did help design the maze Tommy, it’s not your fault. You‘re a kid -- you can’t help what they forced you to do” to ease the survivor’s trauma Thomas has, as well as saying “I actually believe you. You just don’t have an ounce of lying in those eyes of yours. And I can’t bloody believe I’m about to say this...but I’m going back in there to convince those shanks we should go through the griever hole, just like you said”(ch.51); and I think thats the most romantic thing to hear from him. Just right out being all for supporting Thomas no matter what happens as long as he stays alive and continues to fight, he doesn’t care about what happened before. And Thomas eats that up because it fuels him even more to seek out a means to escape for the people (Newt) that deserve a life outside of running from monsters forever. So essentially, I’ll state again, it’s always been Newt the catalyst for Thomas to run head first into the Maze and seek freedom. And with all this I can clear that these two are shown to if not be romantically involved, at least have unconditional love for the other that transcends the author’s original intention.  And with that in mind, here’s the thing with Teresa as a love interest. I can list here quotes of every time she mind speaks to Thomas and how that affects him, but then this would be too long. And this is a newtmas post gosh darn it. Teresa is gleeful to humiliate, control, hurt, and force Thomas to believe they’re in love. In multiple instances we get her barging into his mind unwarranted making him understand that she has full access to his inner most thoughts. Theres nothing romantic about that, and I think its why Thomas ends up being so perceptive to the smallest of gestures that allow him to think on his own and feel like his own person. Something I’ve seen Brenda do later in scorch, and something I’ve seen Newt do since the very beginning is that they allow Thomas to come to his own conclusions in order to create his own opinions on the matters at hand. Thomas’ love language revolves around words of affirmation. He likes it when people confirm his thoughts are valid and that remind him that WICKD can’t hurt him anymore now that he has the power to be his own person. This is where Newt comes in very handy. He allows Thomas to grow in ways his female love interests have yet to show, sorry Brenda but I’ve heard you were trying to unite all immunes together to the safe haven by the end and in a sense still only using Thomas to get by; I still think she was the better call than teresa of course and I have no remorse for Teresa getting smushed by a boulder. But essentially my point here is that, how do you fail to make your initial love interests clash so badly where one has no real care about the others well being so long as everything goes according to WCKD by using a form of gaslighting and manipulation? AND THOMAS HAS STATED HIS DISCOMFORT ON THIS MULTIPLE TIMES, but the narrative always erases these instances from his mind in place of pity for Teresa’s well being (as you can tell, Teresa through this becomes my least favorite character, I can rant about her some othe time though with proper backing). The narrative in turn treats it all like a joke. I understand there are scenes where Thomas is worried about her and looks out to make sure shes ok, but even then he doesn’t know how to react with mental images of her kissing his cheek or when she screams the next minute that she doesn’t know who he is or how hes speaking into her mind. And thats because they can’t properly communicate their emotions to the other, not even in fever code could Thomas give a forward answer if he loved Teresa or not, she just assumed. Come to think of it, Thomas really doesn’t show much affection to Teresa of his own accord. So then, how DOES Thomas show his affection? Thomas provides acts of service as his love language, if he cares about you enough he will risk his life for you. Why? Because Thomas values putting the people he loves foremost knowing full well they are what help him have purpose and succeed in continuing on. In a way, Newt and Thomas’ dynamic works in this instance because they balance the other out and because they have seen each other at their worst and at their best. In a way, that's why knowing the ending of the books makes it harder to accept that Thomas would just easily take the shot...when all his life clung to Newt’s survival. But that’s a story for another time where I compare the movies (of which let me make that clear, yes I prefer) over the books. For now just know that the book may have done this by accident, maybe not, but at the end of the day theres solid proof that Thomas and Newt care about each other in a way that is separately portrayed from their connection to the other glade members, and have this consistency of soft moments running through the entirety of the series. In conclusion; newtmas. Newtmas. NEWTMAS, etc.

a word on color - how line of duty series 6 uses wardrobe color to frame narrative (pt 2)

Author’s note: this is part 2 for this essay on wardrobe color. For part one, read it here. This post covers episodes 2 and 3, which is the close of Act 1 of this series’ arc and the opening of Act 2. Here I discuss… things? Idk. Again, fair warning, I’m American and this is in no way, shape, or form edited and I won’t apologize for it.

ALSO: I’m feeling a bit like I’m losing my mind, and maybe this is just a COVID filming situation, but I think some of the scenes in series 6 are shown to us out of order. Now that I’m tracking every outfit, it’s surprising how frequently Kate and Jo wear the same outfits in scenes together when time (usually days) is meant to have passed in the interim. This is most clear in episode 3. Maybe I’m onto something, maybe I’m over-reading. Who knows!

Anyways, any words on wardrobe below the cut!

EPISODE 2

We open this episode with the team at AC-12, with Hastings, Steve, and gem of series 6 Chloe briefing the team on the inquiry into Operation Lighthouse, the investigation into the murder of Gail Vella. Steve is wearing his standard uniform of a navy three-piece suit, white shirt, and reddish-purple tie (more on this later). (note: the American in me wants to note the nods to nationalism and representing the ‘system’ in this color combination, but I’m actually not sure if that symbolism holds true for the UK). This scene establishes Steve’s position as Jo’s narrative foil - he is the crusader working to root out her corruption. His blue suit is his armor in the battle against bent coppers (unfortunately, not the Battle of Hastings).

Next, we return to MIT with another briefing. This time, Lomax is briefing Jo and Kate on the CHIS’s whereabouts before his murder. Jo implores him to find a witness in order to get a positive ID on ‘Ross Turner’ - is he really Terry Boyle, or Carl Banks? 

We see Jo in a black turtleneck under a grey suit, and Kate is in a light brown suit jacket with green undertones over a navy turtleneck. Again, Jo’s outfit is hinting at her corruption while Kate’s is both hinting at her philosophical allegiance with AC-12 and her relationship with Jo in the color of her jacket. During this scene, we see Farida watch Kate and Jo share a look before she stands abruptly and heads into Buckells’ office. Once Lomax leaves, Kate tries to discuss the possibility of a leak leading to Alistair Oldroyd’s murder, which Jo says is an obvious line of inquiry before sharing that she believes sometimes the fewer police that know, the better. 

Right after this scene, Jo learns from Buckells that Farida has requested a transfer, citing personal reasons right to the face of her personal reasons. Thought Jo was wearing black without participating in some bent shenanigans? Think again! She convinces Buckells that Jatri was a difficult person to work with and would be best elsewhere, offering to write her a recommendation for the transfer. It’s important to note that yes, Jo is getting rid of Jatri in order to remove an obstacle to her work for the OCG (which she later does to the extreme), but she also makes this choice because she genuinely cares for Farida and is attempting to get distance in order to protect her. Sure, she flips on that in a matter of days, but she does make an attempt.

In part, it’s actually Farida’s subsequent actions stalking Jo outside of her home that show Jo that her ex remains a threat to her ability to manipulate the Vella case in secrecy. You can see in the scene that Jo isn’t on her guard - she’s in her casual clothes outside of work, donning a blue sweatshirt over a grey turtleneck, all under a grey coat. In her personal space, the tone of Jo’s wardrobe is entirely cool, because despite her actions, she is at her heart someone who wants to find justice. Seeing Farida though? That makes her deeply nervous.

We then see Steve and #1 DC Chloe Bishop meeting with Gail Vella’s producer, who shares that Gail had been working on a story about police corruption for a podcast. Steve is wearing his backup uniform, a grey suit with a light blue shirt and red tie. Again, he is seeking out the truth in pursuit of justice. Here we find out the motive for Gail’s murder - she was about to expose the Central Police for what they were. Again, this is Steve acting as Jo’s foil - while she worked on behalf of the OCG to obfuscate the motives for Gail’s murder, Steve wants to seek the truth. Reporting back to Hastings, the gaffer makes Steve a DI in response to Steve hoping to use Kate as an informant on the Hill.

Enter: a right shit hole. Steve organizes a surreptitious meeting with Kate in a graffitied underground walkway (note: y’all we don’t have many of these on the east coast, is this a regular thing in the UK??). Steve is wearing the same outfit as before, but with a navy coat. This navy coat is very similar to a navy trench coat we see Kate wear on multiple occasions, including later in this very episode. This shows both his pursuit of justice, motivating his reveal to Kate about the investigation into Davidson’s team, and also their shared allegiance and connection with one another.  Kate, meanwhile, shows up in a green coat. As noted before, green can be used to demonstrate the space Kate occupies between AC-12 and Jo. It is a cool tone, showing her dedication to anti-corruption, but a cool tone that exists because of the influence of a warm tone.

Steve asks Kate to again act as an informant, which she says she’ll think about, and tells her that an official inquiry into Operation Lighthouse has begun. Interestingly, Kate is actually upset that Steve shares this information with her because it puts her in a difficult position between her allegiance to Jo and her belief in rooting out corruption. She expresses this displeasure, all the way through her parting words when she insults Steve’s choice in meeting location. 

Kate’s rather dramatic stomp off transitions immediately to the murder scene of Carl Banks. 

Quick car interlude here! Now, I cannot for the life of me tell you the make of car that Jo drives because it doesn’t exist in the US, but I would be remiss not to note the very dark, almost red tone of the paint color. Meanwhile, Kate drives a bright blue Audi, and Steve drives a slate grey Volvo (hello Mr. Cullen). The color choices between these characters literally persist through their vehicles, which is a level of attention to detail very few shows can hope to reach.

Back to Carl Banks’ slashed up body - Lomax, per usual, gives Kate and Jo the low down on the crime scene. We then meet Farida’s replacement - PC Ryan ‘the bent bastard’ Pilkington, who conveniently finds the murder weapon. Kate, dressed in the navy coat I previously noted as a parallel to Steve’s, has a moment of recognition, but can’t place him directly. Jo, in her classic grey coat, acts cool as a cucumber at his introduction. Kate is wearing that navy coat to show her critical eye - it’s awfully convenient that they found the murder weapon so close to the body, and her spidey-senses are set off by Pilkington’s presence. 

Back at MIT, Lomax continues to be the only detective at MIT to do any work, and gives Kate and Jo the low down on the forensics at the scene. Ryan quickly interrupts, and Kate asks how she knows him, but he brushes her off. The outfits for the next few scenes are very, very interesting. Kate, for one of the only times in the whole season, is wearing a black suit with a white shirt buttoned all the way to the throat. Jo looks fantastic in a dark blue suit over an orangish brown turtleneck. I’ll break down the symbolism in a moment, because our boy Arnott has gotten approval for a raid on Operation Lighthouse.

And boy does he storm into this raid in full AC-12 style! Navy overcoat, blue suit, light blue shirt, purple tie, moral high horse. But wait, Jo is there to stop the raid in its tracks after getting permission from the Deputy Chief Constable to withhold Operation Lighthouse files for fear of leaks. Steve stands there momentarily aghast, egg on his face, while Kate looks on with resolve on her face. Now, Steve’s outfit here is clear - the cool tones of his suit represent his desire to find the corruption in the Vella murder case. On its face, Jo’s outfit is also pretty clear - the warm tones of her sweater align with the way she stonewalls the AC-12 investigation.

However, it’s Kate’s outfit that I think is the most revealing. Even when the colors are neutral, Kate is almost always dressed in color and is rarely depicted in strict black and white outfits. This is a certain visual irony, as in past seasons we have seen that Kate has the most obviously black and white sense of morality. The show does make it a point to have Kate in a clear black and white outfit here, and her shirt is notably buttoned all the way to the top. This actually highlights the space Kate finds herself in that is not black and white - she is stuck between her desire to help Steve and her loyalty to Jo. This position makes her uncomfortable, and also strips her of any visual allegiance to both Steve and Jo. 

But Kate has made a decision - she chose to warn Jo about the investigation, which gives Jo time to prepare. Unbeknownst to Kate at the time (we assume), this actually allows Jo some time to put others in the frame for her interference in the Vella investigation. Steve calls Kate and is rightfully furious, but she tries to implore him to think of her position, where, as the former anti-corruption officer in the unit, she has to prove her loyalty to Jo and the MIT. 

Steve, not at all understanding of Kate’s position, reports this to Hastings who goes straight to the Deputy Chief Constable and gets permission for AC-12 to raid MIT again. He’s obviously not the focus of this analysis but Ted really has some iconic lines in the scene with the DCC and then after with Steve, and I love our vaguely corrupt gaffer (if he’s the fourth man, I’ll fly to the UK to confront Jed myself).

Armed with new permission from the DCC fashion icon Chloe again raids AC-12, and serves Jo with a Reg-15, which in LoD-speak is a formal request to report to AC-12 for questioning. Cue some lovely eye contact between Kate and Jo.

Speaking of lovely eye contact, here we get the first interaction between Kate and Jo where they’re outside of work. Kate and Jo debrief the AC-12 raid and Jo's Reg-15 notice while at dinner with some wine. The men at the table next to them offer to buy them another round of drinks, but Jo flashes her badge and shuts them down. She then ruefully apologizes to Kate for ruining her chances, to which Kate replies that they weren't her type and they share a smile and lots of eye contact. (Note: two of my exes have said that to me about men in the past, so the accuracy in this flirtation is remarkable.) They’re dressed in the same clothes as they were at the office, with a notable exception - Kate’s shirt is unbuttoned. Sure, is this her just relaxing after a long, stressful work day? Yes, of course. But it is also notable that this relaxation happens with Jo specifically, and she’s the one comforting Jo about the Reg-15. 

Later, as the two are walking to their cars, they’re again wearing their outer layers, a navy coat for Kate and grey coat for Jo. Again, they’re both wearing cool tones, with the expectation of the glimpse of Jo’s sweater, which is a hint of her hidden corruption. They thank each other for a nice time. They do the awkward goodbye-but-no-one-wants-to-leave thing, which did in fact send me straight back to a few awkward nights after the bat. Then Kate invites Jo out for the weekend, which she's initially tentative about. They hug, which inspires Jo to tell Kate she's free since she just got out of a long term relationship, and she'd love to see her at the weekend. 

Unfortunately, sapphic trysts must give way to Jo’s interview with AC-12. For the first time, we see her dressed in an all blue outfit, a dark blue suit over a lighter blue shirt, buttoned all the way to the top, which hints at her discomfort. Steve (along with Chloe in a blue shirt), is dressed yet again in his away game kit, a grey suit with a white shirt and red tie. Now, I won’t go into the details of everything because there’s still a decent amount to cover, but the long and short of it is that Jo denies all corruption, she lies about Buckells, Farida, the armed robbery, basically everything. They're about to arrest her when she says they should search Farida, Lomax, and Buckells as well if they’re investigating her, since they had access to the same information. All the while she knows they’ll find the burner phones at Farida’s and paints her as a scorned lover looking for revenge. Farida wouldn’t walk away cleanly, which makes Jo feel like she needs to more permanently remove her from the situation while protecting herself. She also sets up Buckells, having already planted evidence on him and manipulating the wrong surveillance authority on Carl Banks’ flat. 

Because of this, Farida is arrested and Steve serves Buckells with a search warrant.

At first, this seems like the first time Jo has been dressed with the ‘justice’ color scheme while acting in an evidently corrupt way. It could also be read as AC-12 having ‘trapped’ her, also shown through the framing of the shot above. But as is often with this show, not all is as it appears. More on her outfit later.

We close the episode back with Jo in the all blue outfit. She is released from custody, and Ryan Pilkington, who asks her if she heard about Farida’s arrest. Here, Jo offers a rather chilling response. “That’s what happens to a rat.” Upon first watch, there’s perhaps no better sign of a bent cop. But we later learn that Ryan was sent by the OCG to keep an eye on Jo after AC-12 began snooping around the Vella investigation. What appears at first to be Jo confirming that leaks from the MIT will not be tolerated. The revelation about Ryan’s role as intimidation changes this interaction entirely. It’s not confirmation from Jo, it’s a threat from Ryan - ‘did you hear what happened to Farida? That’s what will happen to you.’ and he doesn’t move the car until she confirms that she’s heard him and understood.

The final scene takes Jo to an abandoned lot, where she meets a man who gives her a new burner phone. She picks it up, gets back in her car, and has a complete breakdown. 

Now, the outfit. It’s interesting that Jo is dressed in the same color scheme as the group that ostensibly opposes her, especially as we see her lie through her teeth and manipulate the law and truth to her advantage repeatedly throughout her interview. It isn’t until we see the scenes with Pilkington and Jo crying in her car that we see her actions and her true personhood do not align. While the audience is not yet aware Jo has been manipulated not just throughout her career, but starting in her teen years, the creative team is telling us the plain truth: the visuals associated Jo with AC-12 exist because she is ultimately good.

EPISODE 3

Note: Y’all, at this point I stopped tracking Steve super closely because I think they only gave Martin two suits this season?? And honestly I’m only vaguely tracking on the Steph Corbett stuff. The long and short of it is that he’s wearing cool tones all the time because he’s the symbol of AC-12, etc, etc.

Episode 3 opens with Lomax learning about a witness to the altercation between Alistair Oldroyd and ‘Ross Turner,’ where the man identifying as Ross Turner boasted of killing Gail Vella. He quickly gathers Jo and Kate to tell them the news. Kate is wearing a simple grey sweater, while Jo is wearing a grey suit with a blue sweater and blue shirt. 

We then immediately see Jo and Kate watching Lomax’s interview with this witness. She identifies the man going by Ross Turner as a man matching the description of Terry Boyle. This piques Kate’s interest, and Jo tells her to get a positive ID on Terry while they get him in for another interview. These outfits don’t necessarily relate directly to the scenes they’re worn in, but set the stage for both women’s actions throughout the rest of the episode. That’s not to say the outfits don’t relate at all, of course, but they repeat similar themes that I’ve already discussed. 

Cue another interview of Terry Boyle, this time with Kate and Jo. Kate is wearing a green mockneck sweater, and Jo is wearing a navy suit with an orangish brown sweater, an outfit we’ve seen her in before. As Jo and Kate interview Terry, he grows increasingly agitated, not dissimilar to his first interview, which Jo notes to his representation. Kate keeps pushing him, trying to get a clear answer, but Jo repeatedly tries to get her to back off before eventually stopping the interview right as Terry talks about the man who ‘did it.’ The two women then get into a disagreement as Jo tears into Kate for potentially intimidating a vulnerable witness, while Kate thinks they could’ve pushed him harder. This is the first time we see the two of them disagree, which puts them at odds. 

The clothing here serves dual narrative purposes. The first, with the contrasting brown and green of Jo and Kate’s clothing, we see a visual representation of their disagreement. The second purpose is actually a red herring. Kate’s green sweater does its standard job of showing both her allegiance to Jo (yellow) and her pursuit of justice (blue). Jo’s outfit, on the other hand, again ties her actions to the OCG. She stops the interview right as Terry is about to divulge more information, knowing that this will give away the real killer. We think this is because of her work with the OCG, but that’s not true at all.

After the disagreement between the two women, we see Jo watching a recording of the Terry Boyle interview, wearing a grey turtleneck. In contrast to her behavior in the interview and afterward with Kate, Jo actually seems oddly pleased by Terry’s clear statement of the other man having killed Gail Vella. Because that’s the thing about Jo, she knows how to play the game. She played the part of the perfectly manipulative bent cop by ending the interview when it seemed like some vital information was about to leak. This small moment that the show decided to include tells us everything we need to know because Jo wants the truth to come out, she just doesn’t want anyone else to know. Terry said just enough in that interview to raise alarm bells, but her actions look like someone trying to prevent that information from being revealed. That’s why Jo is wearing a grey sweater here, not the orangish brown from the interview - the cool tone shows her true desire for the truth.

I also believe this is why Kate was in the interview instead of Lomax, who we’ve seen in most past interviews. Lomax is far more laid back and passive than Kate, who mostly listens until she sees a line of questioning that she can crack open further. Jo knows her team, and she knows Kate. Getting told off by her boss when she thinks she’s on to something is not enough to dissuade Kate. Jo trusts that about Kate, and uses it to her advantage. It ties back to something we don’t learn until episode 6 - Jo sought Kate out as her new DI specifically because of Kate’s anti-corruption background. This is that reasoning in action. A former AC-12 might just be the person needed to find justice despite Jo’s personal interference.

After this, we see DI Kate “loves a car chase” Fleming tailing the escort taking Terry home, which includes Ryan Pilkington and another PC, Lisa Patel. She immediately notes that they have gone off the planned route, and lo and behold, the bent bastard drives the patrol car directly into a reservoir, drowning Lisa and attempting to drown Terry. Kate is quick to the scene and immediately gets involved, preventing Ryan from carrying out the murder of Terry. She rushes out of her (blue) car wearing a blue coat and blue scarf - she is justice incarnate. 

Lomax and Jo quickly arrive at the scene, and Jo shows concern for Kate. Jo is in the same suit and sweater combination she was wearing during the Boyle interview with the addition of a grey jacket, while Kate is wrapped in a blue blanket. Jo, stuck between the OCG and justice; Kate, wrapped in a symbol of truth. Jo specifically notes that it’s lucky Kate was passing by, to which Kate agrees, not correcting her. I’ll admit, at first I didn’t really understand what Jo is playing at here. Anyone can tell that Kate wasn’t just passing by - the reservoir was well off the main road. What is she talking about?

Well, your honor, she’s leading the witness. She’s telling Kate what she wants to hear before the DI has a chance to speak the truth. Plausible deniability. We also see Jo spend an awful lot of time watching Kate as she traverses the scene, and the framing is set up to make it seem like Jo is wary of Kate. Reality, however, is a little different. This is actually the moment that tells Jo she needs to create distance between herself and Kate, not because she’s worried that Kate will look too closely at her, but because her actions nearly got an innocent man killed and she doesn’t want Kate to be at risk.

Later, we see Kate visit AC-12 in a grey sweatshirt and jeans, willing to work with the navy-clad Steve to find the leak at MIT because of the attempted murder of Terry Boyle. We then immediately see the two former partners doing research on Pilkington’s background - he has clearly caught Kate’s attention. The two trained investigators are clearly paralleled in color, both dressed in cool tones as they work to seek out justice. 

Back at MIT, Jo watches Kate arrive at work from a window, wearing a red shirt under a navy suit. It’s clearly meant to be a menacing cue, especially with the red shirt, but later scenes show that all may not be as it appears. Meanwhile, Kate continues her pursuit of Pilkington by interviewing him about the crash. He seems to have all the answers, and remains polite throughout, but it’s clear that Kate doesn’t trust him. She’s wearing the same orange and blue striped turtleneck from the first episode under a navy suit. Throughout their conversation, Jo is watching from her office, again, something that appears on its face to be menacing, but may not be. 

Kate’s outfit is much the same as the first time she wore it - her combined associations with Jo and AC-12 as she works to catch Ryan. Jo is wearing the same outfit as she did while watching Kate through the window, a subtle red herring from the production team. More on Jo’s seemingly big bad evil behaviour later.

After Kate’s conversation with Ryan, our resident anti-corruption officer comes storming into AC-12 headed straight to Jo’s office, where she sits wearing a grey suit, orange sweater, and white shirt. Steve is wearing his blue suit, with a light blue shirt and green tie. He shows up at MIT to ask Jo about a possible burglary in the Vella case. She doesn't know anything but tells him to ask the team, and he asks her if she hid or removed any files, which she denies. He also asks if she knows if anyone who would benefit from Farida not testifying. Cue guilty look and further denial. She tells him "You should investigate," and he confirms he’s planning to. Throughout this scene, Kate is looking on wearing a green shirt. 

Jo’s outfit is obvious - she’s lying through her teeth to Steve and feels guilty for what she did to Farida. Steve has his classic AC-12 action suit on, with the change of a green tie, visually tying him to Kate, wearing a green top. Kate’s outfit obviously ties her to Steve, but as with other instances of Kate wearing green, it also shows her connection to Jo.

But wait, dear viewer, it’s been so long since our last Lomax low-down! Have no fear, because Kate and Chris are discussing the witness at the pub, and seems dissatisfied with his lack of attention to detail when he admits that he hasn’t done his due diligence to vet her. Kate is wearing a more casual blue zip-up jumper with a white t-shirt, again on her pursuit of justice. Jo watches from her office wearing a green turtleneck and grey suit.

For those counting at home, this is the fourth very obvious shot of Jo watching Kate so far this episode. And that makes sense, because this color change in Jo actually shows how her thoughts and actions are in conflict. She continues to interfere with the investigation, but she doesn’t want to be. She’s nervous about the consequences for those around her, Kate in particular.

It seems only right that this leads to date night part 2, where we get more insight into Jo while Kate grows more confused. They’re at the same restaurant as before, but they’re sitting on opposite sides of the table. Kate is wearing a light grey sweater, and Jo is wearing a grey suit, grey sweater and light blue shirt. The way their wardrobe coloring is coordinated in this moment is done for two reasons: to show that these characters have a connection, and to show that Jo’s actions in this scene are something she believes to be right. 

Jo notes that it's nice to get out of the station and that it's easier to talk there. About Terry. Talk about Terry Boyle they do, and AC-12's interest in interviewing him. Kate asks about the rumors between Jo and Farida, and Jo denies it all, including her sexuality in all. When she leaves to go to the restroom, Kate has a look of confusion on her face. At first glance, this seems to be Jo separating herself from Farida for fear of discovery, but her clothes give us a hint at her real motivation. Jo is trying to discourage Kate from their burgeoning relationship by implying that she wouldn’t be interested. This clearly makes Jo uncomfortable, but it’s the first clear step she takes to distance herself from Kate once she realizes how her association with the other woman puts Kate in danger. This is also a self-preservation tactic - if she and Kate aren’t as close, it might not hurt as much if the OCG get to her.

This is also the last time we see the two of them out of work together until the fateful lorry park.

Back at work, however, the bent bastard is getting a commendation from Buckells for his heroic actions, which disgusts Kate in her grey turtleneck. She goes to leave the room but stops when she meets Jo, wearing a navy suit and red shirt. Kate uses the opportunity to fish for information about Pilkington, and is met with a surprise: Jo didn’t put Ryan on the team, Buckells did. Kate in her grey is still seeking answers about Ryan, while Jo in her red is trying to shift attention away from her bent activities (though she was honest about not looking to put Ryan on the team - she was lucky enough to have that thrust upon her). 

Jo then takes this chance to swing by Farida’s apartment, and finds out that AC-12 is doing another search of the property, which clearly makes her afraid of what they’ll discover, aka her DNA all over the house. 

After visiting Farida’s, we see an utterly distraught and scared Jo return to her apartment, the blue haven.

Despite Jo’s fears after visiting Farida’s, her prayers are somewhat answered in the form of one DI Kate Fleming. Both are wearing the same outfits from Jo’s cross-office staredown of Kate’s meeting with Lomax, and Kate is bearing the fruits of that conversation. She didn’t trust the witness’ statement, and had Chris do some further digging, only to discover the witness and Buckells had a previous connection. Jo, being given a hail mary, uses this to her advantage and makes Buckells her scapegoat, but not before telling Kate the absolute truth: “I needed someone on my team I could trust completely. Someone with no chance of being bent. Who better than an anti-corruption officer?” We learn later that this is exactly why Jo hired Kate in the first place, but in reality she was trusting Kate to stop her, not Buckells. 

The two arrest Buckells and take him to AC-12, and we get an interesting shot of Kate leaving in the elevator, a blue cityscape behind her with the noticeable view of yellow construction scaffolding standing out against the cool colors, visually telling the audience about her bent actions. 

Jo then returns to her all blue apartment in the grey suit and green turtleneck, sending a message to an unknown user at the OCG saying it's "All under control now." The green turtleneck highlights both Jo’s feelings of being trapped with the high neckline, and her occupation of the space between justice and corruption. Like with Kate before, she’s wearing a cool color, where her heart lies, and its infection by a warm color, the iron fist of the OCG on her throat. 

We close this episode with Jo staring off into the middle distance, a look somewhere between relief and desperation on her face.

May 9, 2021: A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) (Recap: Part One)

Welcome to the future.

At this point, we’ve mostly looked at the past, present, or the near-future (as in, the next ten years, if that). Additionally, we’ve looked either at nonexistent technology in a contemporary setting, or an extension of existing technology taken to a logical next step. But no more. No more realism, no more real-world rules, and nothing that we’re even close to in this reality.

Well...mostly.

That’s genuinely impressive, not gonna lie. Anyway, yeah, from here forwards (for a bit), we’ll be looking at the future and futuristic technology. Now, there are a couple of ways in which these films tend to go. The first big way that we tend to represent the future in film is the same way we always have: flying cars, futuristic technology, smart houses, and robots.

Now, there are countless examples of this future, and it always changes a bit depending on the present. Which, yeah, makes sense. After all, what I’m doing right now, at this moment, would’ve been seen by many people as a massive technological achievement, even around the time that I was born. Which, yes, I’m old, deal with it (because I can’t). Anyway, the way that this begins is with the first major filmed view of a seemingly idyllic future: Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis.

The overly mechanized (and politically dystopic) society seen in this film, as well as the visuals and technology, would inform our ideas of the future throughout the next century. Multiple themes and common objects reoccur throughout futuristic fiction. You know the stuff I’m talking about. Flying cars, automatic food machines, robotic assistants, video watches, holograms, jetpacks, so on and so forth.

But here’s the thing about the future. It’s always ahead of us, and eventually...well, we’ve gotten to most of those things to some degree. Either they already exist...

...or is currently being developed.

Well, one of them we’re still working on. And the development of more advanced AI is something we have yet to perfect, or even fully develop. However, the development of A.I. (and the consequences of that technology) are ALL OVER science fiction. Sometimes, they’re merely used for flavor to help establish the futuristic setting.

Sometimes, they’re characters with their own agency and conflicts, which may or may not define the plot. In these cases, they’re often simply there to back up the main human characters, and help with their development, and sometimes their own. You know, manic pixie dream robots.

And then, possibly most often, they’re the abject villains of the piece. they can be mysterious alien technology, like in The Day the Earth Stood Still, or a man-made danger that turns on the race that created and/or abused it.

But then, on occasion, an A.I. is given the chance to develop as a character, without being used to define the development of a human character. Sometimes, the question of what life truly means is raised through these characters, and we become attached to them outside of any other character. This isn’t nearly as common as the others, but it’s definitely not unheard of.

And for the record...things don’t often go well for those AIs. But still, some of those characters have quite a lasting impact. So, there’s quite a lot of potential for this type of character, from a dramatic standpoint. And that potential leads us to the guy who made this.

I WILL MAKE A JURASSIC PARK REFERENCE AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE

Steven Spielberg gives us today’s entry, and this director of a classic science fiction story about science gone awry teamed up with the director of a science fiction film where an artificial intelligence went awry. You know, this thing.

I didn’t forget about HAL. And I won’t forget about him later, either.

Director Stanley Kubrick is pretty well-know for his mind-bending films, especially The Shining and 2001: A Space Odyssey. But he also worked with Spielberg on this film before his death in 1999, as this was one of his dream projects for many years, and the two directors were well-known friends.

And so, eventually, Spielberg was given the reins from Kubrick, and results were...mixed. It’s funny, because I’ve never actually seen this movie, but I remember it through its surprisingly widespread ad campaign. I used to go to NYC as a kid a lot, and there was a massive building-side plastered with the iconic logo of this movie. So, I’ve been hovering around this movie for a long time. Enough navel-gazing!

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (Part One)

It is, unsurprisingly, the future. A marrator informs us that climate change has caused the ice caps to melt, and global flooding drowns several countries. You could say that it’s a...Waterworld.

I genuinely considered watching that movie at some point, and then I decided I liked myself to much to watch 2 hours of Kevin Costner’s emotionless acting. Granted, it’s not much better now, listening to the emotionless acting of...

Professor Allen Hobby (William Hurt) is a straight-up sociopath. OK, technically, he’s a robotics engineer, but dude’s making a speech, right? He talks about how far robots have come, dissing my boi Deep Blue in the process, and notes that pain-memory response can also be demonstrated by robots. He proves this by stabbing a woman in his audience, like RIGHT through the hand. Jesus, man! Why the hell would you do that?

Oh. Holy shit, I got fooled. Advanced technology indeed. But OK, so Sheila’s a robot, and a very advanced one...to us. But Hobby wants more, and proposes to his workers to make a robot that can really TRULY love. And through love may come a true subconscious, which means making a robot that can dream. And what better robot to make than a robot child? After all, all child conception requires a license in this futuristic world, so many childless couples are yearning for a child.

Which is why, twenty months later, the first robot child is offered to Henry and Monica Swinton (Sam Robards and Frances O’Connor), a couple...with a child. Um. Guys. You JUST SAID that there are legit childless couples who need a child, and those people would be best suited to love that robot child back (a VERY GOOD question raised by one of Hobby’s subordinates). So why give it to a couple whose son is still alive? Yeah, he’s got a rare disease that they don’t have a cure for yet, and is currently in cryostasis, BUT THEY HAVE A KID! Surely, that’s going to be a potential emotional conflict! And what if the kid wakes up or some shit? This is a TERRIBLE goddamn idea. Think this shit through, guys.

And yet...

This is David (Haley Joel Osment), Cybertronics’ first child robot, brought home by Henry to essentially replace their son. Which is AMAZINGLY FUCKING TONE-DEAF AND INSANE, GODDAMN. That’s extraordinarily messed up. And, for the record, I totally get what Spielberg’s going for, but Jesus Christ, man. This was a terrible way to go about this. And it gets fucking WORSE.

See, Henry (who actually works for Cybertronics) tells Monica that, once they sign the papers and complete the updates, David will imprint on them and see him as their true parents, loving them unconditionally. Which...yeah, fuck, that’s an entire DUMP TRUCK of ethics issues right there. And, while we’re at it, David is...creepy as shit. I mean it, dude, Haley Joel Osment is a VERY good child actor, but he’s laying on the creepy robot child thing THICK. And yeah, this is BEFORE he imprints on them. Jesus fuck, man, there’s a scene where the still uncomfortable Monica is outside of a glass door, and he looks back at her THROUGH THE DOOR like a goddamn SERIAL KILLER.

And I gotta tell ya, dude does not lay off that creepy-ass dial one iota. And for that matter, the music by John Williams ISN’T FUCKING HELPING. LISTEN to this shit, and imagine a robot child that you don’t know wandering around your house. It’s amazingly fucking creepy.

AND IT JUST. KEEPS. GETTING. WORSE. There’s a scene where they’re all at dinner, right, and David’s just staring at them as they eat, mimicking their actions. After all, he’s a robot, he can’t actually eat or drink anything because of his internal working. And then, out of FUCKING NOWHERE, he starts laughing like the FUCKING JOKER, and it scares the EVER-LOVING SHIT OUT OF ME. And somehow, they laugh alongside him, in the never-ending Stockholm syndrome that is this movie! And as soon as its over, he just STOPS laughing, spontaneously. Fuck me, man, I’m tempted to stop watching here and now, and I’m only TWENTY MINUTES IN! I need a fucking break.

And after that...OF COURSE she decides to activate his imprinting protocols to make him, let me remind you, LOVE HIM FOREVER! She reads out a series of words, and after “FREIGHT CAR”, he knows his mission is to kill the Prime Minister of Sokovia. But first, he’ll settle down and love Monica unconditionally (again, FOREVER), calling her Mommy and making me shit my pants in fear. IT WASN’T ME, IT WAS FUCKING DAVID

Oh, and by the way, isn’t it kinda shitty to do that without Henry being involved AT ALL? Like, cool, he has unconditional maternal love, but Henry wasn’t a part of that conditioning at all! And he still refers to him as “Henry” instead of Dad! However, Henry definitely doesn’t care about that, because he still sees David as only a robot. Hey, guys, maybe using these two as your first experiment with a robot child WAS A TERRIBLE FUCKING IDEA, YOU IDIOTS! No wonder William Hurt was cast as Thunderbolt Ross in the MCU. Already shown he can play a character with shitty ideas before.

Anyway, after this terrible series of events, David prevents the parents from leaving one night due to his childlike antics. When Monica goes to comfort him, he asks how long she’ll live, and tells her that he hope she never dies, a COMPLETELY NORMAL THING TO SAY. Look, I get that he’s a robot, but only a goddamn emotionless sociopath would program emotional responses like this into a robot. Which, given what we’ve seen of Hobby, makes sense.

In response, she gives him Teddy (Jack Angel), a technologically advanced teddy bear with sentience, a personality, and the voice of Astrotrain from The Transformers TV series. Because, yes, I am THAT MUCH of a goddamn nerd.

Soon after, the house gets a phone call, which David receives...literally. He takes the phone and allows it to speak through him. It turns out that, shock beyond shocks, THEIR SON IS CURED! Yeah, fuck. Maybe giving David to a family with a STILL LIVING SON is a fucking ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE IDEA, for about a thousand reasons.

And, fucking understandably, Martin Swinton (Jake Thomas) is a little upset to find out that he’s essentially been replaced by a robot kid. Although, to be fair, he’s also kind of a dick to David, holding his humanity over him and treating him as a toy that he attempts to manipulate and bully. My Lord, this is a massively stupid idea. And Martin immediately shows his dickishness by asking his mother to read Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio to them. Which is meant to be a punishment for Pinocchio. However, of course, David loves it.

Still, however, there’s trouble in paradise for David, as he tries to compete with Martin for being a real boy, and eats spinach at dinner one evening. Despite Teddy’s mildly ominous warning to him (”YOU WILL BREAK”), he keeps eating until he basically has a stroke and breaks, forcing him to be repaired by some of Cybertronics’ technicians. Monica has a bit of a break down as a result, which Martin notices. This causes Martin to go pure supervillain, manipulating David to do creepy things in order to insert doubt into Monica about David. Jesus, Martin’s a creepy kid, too. No wonder Monica grew to be cool with David, her actual son is a FUCKING SOCIOPATHIC MONSTER! Are there ANY truly normal people in this world? IS THIS WHAT THE FUTURE IS?

Martin convinces David to cut a lock of Monica’s hair while she’s sleeping. And lemme tell ya, a little boy holding scissors over someone while they sleep is not exactly comforting. Henry agrees, and after stopping him, believes that they need to return him. Monica disagrees, knowing that they’ll destroy him if brought back. But David, ever the semi-sociopath himself, ignores any signs of humanity in David and dismisses Monica's feelings for him entirely. He also says this thing about “IF HE CAN BE PROGRAMMED TO LOVE, CAN NOT HE BE PROGRAMM-ED TO HATE?”, which...no. No, he cannot. He didn’t learn to love, he was programmed to. And, again, that’s ethically FUCKED, but taking that into account...no. HE WASN’T PROGRAMMED TO HATE, HENRY. Goddamn, buddy, use your head here.

It’s Martin’s birthday, and his friends at the pool party expose David to the fun world of anti-robot (or Mecha) racism, and test to see if he has Damage Avoidance Systems by threatening him with a knife. And he does. Buuut, when those systems kick in, he goes to the nearest point of safety to keep himself safe. That point is, unfortunately, Martin, whom he gets behind...and accidentally drags into the pool.

Thing is, because of Martin’s recent illness, he can’t exactly swim, meaning that David almost drowns him. When Henry and other partygoers go to save him, they abandon David in the pool completely. And now, David’s fucked. Because although this situation isn’t even a little bit his fault, he also just nearly killed Martin. And so, after seeing notes that he’s been writing to her, Monica offers to take for a “ride in the country”. Which definitely means something good. In reality, she’s planning on taking him back to Cybertronics. But once in the car, there’s a change in plans. And hear me out...it’s arguably far more horrifying.

She decides to abandon him in the woods completely, despite how hard it is for her to leave him. She’s sparing him from death, sure, but also throwing him into a world he doesn’t understand, and for reasons that he doesn’t understand. It’s genuinely terrible. And then...yeah, she leaves him forever, to an uncertain future.

End Act One.

I think this is a good place to stop. It’s early, and I need more coffee to handle this shit. See you in Part Two. Of Three. Yup. It’s a long one.

“The Rise of Skywalker”- A Review from Memory

So it’s been a week since I’ve had to live with this film in front of my eyes, and a week and a half that I’ve had to grapple with the brunt of its sins. With a heavy sigh, I think I’m ready to go through the play-by-play of every plot hole in this film that I can manage from memory without the thing in front of me. And even then, the laundry list is hefty. Keep in mind that this is a FILM-BASED review only- I have tried to refrain from including new information we have learned since its release last Thursday in an effort to keep this as focused and topical as possible.

+The first scene of this film is weird. I’m all for watching Adam Driver wild out on some dudes, but it is never explained who these guys are and if it’s just Kylo ‘committing more slaughter’ (as the casual audience is wont to think) or if there’s something significant here. As the movie goes on and Kylo makes it clear that he’s under no one’s thumb, *and* that the object he was after was Sith, you start to get an idea that maybe those guys at the intro are No Good, but this is never explained or confirmed. To a casual audience with no interest in additional materials, it just looks like Bad Ole Kylo Doing More Bad Ole Stuff. *sigh*

+Exogol and Palpatine’s hideout looks like the Borg Cube from Star Trek: First Contact from 1996. This really smacked me in the face how similar it was.

+Snoke’s significance getting sniped by Palpatine in one fell swoop felt like two five year olds arguing over action figures in the sandbox. “No! He’s dead now! Now the good guys can go on their quest!” “Well if he’s dead now, it’s only because MY guy was the REAL bad guy! DOOSHDOOSHDOOSHDOOSH!!” Like….really? At least Palpatine’s never-spoken-of Snoke manufacturing lab was vaguely interesting. Too bad we never saw anything about that- what a story of intergalactic puppet-masters that would have made! We’re not here for clever storytelling, though, so moving on…

+I don’t think they should have included Leia in this film. It really added to the disjointed nature of this movie with flat audio, crippled dialogue, and CGI where Leia only really had one facial expression for 90% of her appearances. It really wasn’t worth it. I know Star Wars doesn’t do flashbacks (which, frankly, I appreciate a lot), but I think they could have utilized the IDEA of Leia better than her actual self. Leia was forced, it showed, and it wasn’t good. Honestly they did a WAY better job reviving Tarkin in RO.

+An incredibly unnecessary amount of new information for the third act of a series was introduced in this film, starting with Leia suddenly being a well-trained Jedi or something. At least enough to ‘train’ Rey, which…frankly wasn’t believable. Leia having the force was a given. That she distanced herself from active application of the Force as a residual reaction to the bombshell of Darth Vader being her father is what is, and always has, made sense. THAT is a nuanced perspective, but it gets thrown out in favor of not just shoe-horning Leia in to the movie, but also because they had no idea what else to do with her at all in this film. This is also why Leia shouldn’t have been in this movie the way she was.

+Oh, you knew Palpatine was behind all this the whole time, Leia? Really? Always there, huh? When in TFA it was always snoke? Obvious dialogue lift is obvious, but the use of it was just Bad and inconsiderate to the story.

+Poe’s backstory was published on December 18th, 2015 in a book called “Before The Awakening” that details the lives of Poe, Finn, and Rey leading up to TFA. Poe is the son of two famous Rebel fighters and he grows up with a nice quiet life on Yavin 4 learning about ships and loving to fly. He goes straight from his home world to joining the Republic navy. It’s a handful of months before Leia Organa picks up on him and brings him into the Resistance. Now…this is a backstory that is JJ Abrams approved, has been out since 2015, and yet Oscar Isaac said he ‘never knew’ Poe’s backstory, and JJ somehow thinks four years later that there is space in this incredibly concise timeline for him to become a drug runner. What?? This was possibly the BIGGEST wtf moment for me in this film. What in the actual world. WHAT.

+Sidelining old characters to pointlessly introduce new ones does not serve a story, it clogs it up, drags down its rhythm, and confuses the hell out of it. As seen by Zorri and Jannah. And out of those two, only Jannah carried any kind of actual literary weight, because for Finn, he’s found more people like himself. This sort of setup is a typical play to foreshadow where Finn eventually settles down and goes at the end of the war. But this is never expounded on or explained further. It’s just, BOOM, more former troopers and a girl who is suddenly irrationally attached to him at all times.

+Rose gets replaced by Jannah, a brand new character that we only know one single thing about, and who gets to latch on to Finn out of the blue while Rose is left at home or on a ship. It was weird. It was obvious. It was incredibly awkward to watch. There was no point to Jannah clinging to Finn like this. She was reduced from a strong character to a cringy clingy one, while Finn’s love interest was completely ignored.

+The ‘Journey to The Rise of Skywalker’ comics released a couple weeks before the film heavily implied we’d get a lot of great Rose and Rey team time. We received none of it. It felt like someone had jerked a present away from us and it was a gross omission.

+It is only by the very end of the film and after multiple watches that you THINK they are trying to hint that Kylo is spiraling, thus why Leia steps in in death, but it never ever gets shown. Never once are we let in on Kylo’s state of mind. In fact, never once are we let in on *any* of these characters’ states of mind. We never really see what they are feeling or thinking or going through. Kylo is nothing but action when in TFA and TLJ we see him falling apart. This is what bad direction looks like, and it takes a Real Talent to fuck up directing an actor like Adam Driver. Another big sigh…

+There are only two cool things about this movie- The bleeding of reality between Kylo and Rey, and Palpatine’s shadow senate. When Kylo and Rey fight and the red bits go flying on the floor, it screamed serious TLJ aesthetics to me that I had to blink a moment. I think this ‘Bleed-through’ of their realities is the only TLJ hold-over we were allowed. It was a genuinely fascinating touch, which is how you know it didn’t come from *this* film’s production office.

+When you stick three people in a closet together, you expect some sort of progress in two-thirds of the potential relationships in such a cramped space. We received no such thing. Forced Trio Time resulted in no character development and seemed more like an unnecessary comic relief vehicle than anything.

+In ‘Before The Awakening’ and ‘Rey’s Survival Guide’, both publications printed under JJ Abrams’s  blessing, we learn Rey named *herself* after a helmet she found in the desert. How is it Rey’s alleged parents know her fake name? Gross, gross plot-hole.

+Four years was spent emphasizing that you don’t have to come from anywhere ‘special’ to be Important to a big story. Then they threw it out. Post-TROS interview with JJ reveals it was because they ‘couldn’t think of how else to get rey engaged in fighting palpatine’. Because he wasn’t a nasty enough dude on his own? Seriously? This is pure negligence.

+Four years was also spent emphasizing that you also don’t even NEED the force to be important to the big story and make a huge difference to the future. But let’s throw that out, too, and give Finn the force. Clearly regular people are absolutely worthless in the Star Wars Universe, according to JJ Abrams.

+Finn is only used to babysit Rey the entire time they share screen time together. The number of times he shouts her name could be turned into a drinking game. It’s one thing to care about somebody, and another thing entirely to act like you’re their high school chaperone. The whole thing was weird and awkward.

+Zorri Bliss sounds like a stripper name and she served no purpose other than to shoehorn Felicity into a star wars movie. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Babu Frik is the only true-to-star-wars critter in this whole film.

+Leia literally goes and lays down on her own funeral spread? What was that about. And that’s what that was because why would her bed be out in the open like that? That was really, really weird. And the RoTJ medal throwback was just a tacky tether to the past.

+Everyone seems so irrationally tethered to the past in this film. Kylo Ren’s spent two movies desperate to ‘leave the past behind’ and I don’t blame him at this point because it’s getting exhausting.

+As stated previously, it’s only vaguely suspected but Kylo seemed to SUPPOSED to be spiraling. Adam Driver plays Kylo like a man finally free of the voices in his head, but the plot and dialogue point to an entirely different direction saying that REALLY the monsters have allegedly doubled-down and he’s even more unhinged than before. Here is a MAJOR indication of story re-working after the film has already been shot. Adam Driver, and Daisy for that matter, is a PRECISE actor. It seems almost impossible to tell a story with him that you did not originally MEAN to tell. And it shows. JJ tried to U-Turn the story but it absolutely failed- Adam’s Kylo Ren is a calm, free man, focused, who finally knows what his purpose in life is, and that is uniting with his Dyad in the force. When really JJ tried very hard to suggest that he was spiraling so hard and so ‘lost’ in the Dark Side that it took his mother’s last breath to swing him back around. No one is going to see that narrative. The only reason why I see this shoddy attempt is because I’ve been absolutely immersed in this shit since December 2015. But the main audience? This was absolutely not conveyed.

+Seeing Dark Side Rey was nothing but a ‘cool’ moment and actually served zero function to the plot. Rey was always shown as being Grey in the force and someone who struggled to maintain balance. If that whole scene was removed, it wouldn’t change anything.

+Kylo was never in a position to kill Rey on the Death Star, and Rey taking her cheap shot to stab him while he heard his mother’s voice is an attempt to convey how much seeing her Sith self affected her than Kylo’s already very faded aggression in this film but it failed. It was weird and out of character, and even coming to that conclusion took may rewatches to come to because there is NEVER a ramp-up to Rey’s darkside taking over long enough to stab Kylo- there’s no fire, no red eyes, no teeth, none of it, to indicate she was ‘overcome’ so it just looked like bad mischaracterization. Yikes.

+Kylo and Han’s moment on the Death Star is the most moving scene of the entire film. The dialogue starts out rather familiar, and it almost seems like a cop-out, until you realize….how many times has Ben had this conversation with himself?? He doesn’t seem shocked at all that his father is there. Not at all. In fact, that Last Conversation on the bridge of Starkiller comes off as a well-rehearsed dance that Ben puts himself through regularly. And every time he hopes it’ll be affirmation enough that it’s all been worth it. But here, at the last reenactment of the worst day of his life, the script changes. He surrenders. He says dad. And he rejects Kylo Ren forever. Harrison Ford and Adam Driver are two beautifully matched, talented actors and I’d watch a movie with the two of them in it any day. God bless them.

+Hux has been wasted for the past two films. He was Terrifying in TFA and Dom gave him such significant presence that I was genuinely terrified for what he might try in the future. But instead he was lost as comic relief. When it is comically delivered that HE is the spy, every single person in my movie theatre shouted “WHAT??” in a way that was not a Good what, but in a “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me” kind of what, and I will never ever forget that. I hate seeing Star Wars diminished like this.

+Luke rehashing Obi-wan’s speech to him about how Rey MUST confront the Big Bad was an obvious rehash, and way too convenient to what Palpatine wanted. This whole appearance of Luke is very suspect, but that would be crediting them again with clever storytelling, which again this is not.

+Luke claims that Leia saw ‘the death of her son’ at the end of her Jedi Path, which one can assume why she threw it away. But then Luke says something bizarre about ‘hoping someone else would pick up her path someday’. Is that...is that not the same path leading to Ben’s death that she was avoiding in the first place? And if someone else picks it up, is that not no longer Leia’s path but that other person’s? Therefore, is not the outcome automatically going to be different and thus *avoid* Ben’s death? This was an attempt at supposedly clever foreshadowing or Mystical Talk or some shit, but all it was was dialogue that backfired in meaning spectacularly due to looping-in on itself too many times. Luke negates himself at the same time he tries to prove his point...which he then negates in the same breath. What a mess.

+All of Ben Solo’s lines were cut the last act of the film to stuff more pointless exposition at the END of film and to give more screen time to Ian McDiarmid. Ian’s great, but he’s not the main character of this series, and cutting Ben’s lines for this was Gross.  

+Space Horses? Really?? I didn’t like them in TLJ but at least there they had context- they had zero context here. The size of the horses and the ship they came off of was absurdly mismatched. Is that ship the TARDIS? That whole bit was so unnecessary and ridiculous, especially with zero setup. Which is amazing because this film is 90% set-up.

+All those ships at the end? That’s all it took? After books and comics going on about how everyone’s too terrified to help Leia because of FO scorched earth policy? Jesus it was weak, and too obvious a Deus ex Machina with THAT many ships.

+Palpatine’s Shadow Senate is cool. The idea that this guy trapped on an ugly planet stuck on Sith life-support couldn’t go two seconds without attention and praise to the point where he had to recreate the exact same senate he destroyed years ago is a concept I like. Is the Shadow Senate just in the *shape* of the old senate but filled with animated Sith proxies? Or is it actually comprised of the enslaved souls of former Senators now forced to attend the Emperor for eternity? Either way, destroying the Shadow Senate at least either set those souls free or sent them back to wherever they came from. That was actually interesting, and it’s a shame we didn’t get to learn more about such a genuinely creepy thing.

+Palpatine’s ‘we’re family’ routine drops the moment he realizes Ben and Rey are a dyad. This is suspicious, but considering the whole movie so far, it seems incorrect to giver JJ and Torrio credit for a possible mis-direct.

+Rey and Ben’s realities bleeding into each other is experienced again in swapping the light saber. This is cool. This is probably the coolest moment in the film. And then the coolness literally gets thrown into a pit when, instead of the both of them, as a Dyad, defeating Palpatine, Rey is left to carry the burden alone.

+Oh hey look a cop-out to save Rey from being bad- just have her reflect his own power back at him so it’s like he’s killing himself, wow, so original! The second Palpy revealed his gameplan about wanting to die, this became the obvious choice to both kill him and avoid giving him what he wanted. Eh….

+The Star Wars 9-movie series is the story of one man desperately begging anyone within hearing range to kill him, apparently. This is so, so old by the 9th friggin movie. 

+Ben Solo spends his entire life begging for guidance from his ancestors only to be ignored and Rey get all their attention instead. Ben Solo spends his entire life since the womb being a burden to his parents by merely existing and being manipulated by gross sith ghosts. But nah, let’s be parents to Rey and help out Rey. This is not to say she doesn’t deserve any of this, but to say there are priorities here- Rey has had a lonely life, but at least she had her sanity and was self-sufficient. Ben had neither his sanity or any control over his own life whatsoever. And to place Rey above Ben is a literal mess. The two of them were meant by the Force to rise TOGETHER, and it didn’t happen.

+Rey doesn’t disappear when she ‘dies’ after using the last of her life force to both feed Palpatine, fight him, AND defeat him. And yet while Rey has two strikes in her before kicking it, Ben, someone who is RADICALLY more trained in the force, its lore, and mechanics, only has one? This doesn’t make any sense.

+Rey has no reaction to the literal other half of her soul vanishing in front of her. Because this is a mangled JJ Abrams Finale(tm) and why should anyone, let alone his own characters, have any space to Feel? I mean, that’s not what movies are even about, right? Feeling and Telling A Story? It’s not that, right? Right?? JJ Abrams covers up Rey’s reaching-hands scar on her arm for the entire film, doesn’t address it, and apparently hates the shit out of it. I don’t know how the King of Cheese could possibly hate something like that. It was a weird and obvious omission, and frankly disappointing because the scar had come to mean something at the end of TLJ and it, like a lot in this film, got thrown in the trash.

+More forced trio time in the form of a group hug where nothing gets actually expressed because we ran out of space for dialogue 30 pages back.

+Anakin Skywalker viewed Tatooine, his place of enslavement, as the worst place in the galaxy. Luke Skywalker spent his entire youth trying to escape. Leia hated it on principle because it was where Darth Vader came from and where she herself had been enslaved in a gross gold bikini for a giant slug. Rey spent 14 years of her life dreaming of leaving the sand planet she was trapped on. But I guess that’s a fitting place to bury some memories, yeah? The place where nothing good ever, ever happened. That’s a nice spot, right?

+Rey Skywalker isn’t explained, is never led up to, and feels like a gross gimmie after four years of trying to create a Better Message that names don’t matter. HEAVY SIGH.

+Rey watches the two suns set as she is left with little more than she started- alone, on a sand planet, but this time taunted by the Twin Suns of Tatooine that the other half of her soul is literally missing and that she is now left with a gaping wound in her Force signature and her own spirit worse than if she’d just lost a Force Bonded mate.

+Ben Solo is left missing, vanished on a world that is supposedly a thin spot in the force, with no ghost, no presence, and no one to mourn him- not even by the other half of his very soul. THREE GENERATIONS of Skywalkers over NINE FILMS died to try and rescue their future embodied in the form of Ben Solo and it looks like it was for nothing. Instead, the incessant bad guy no one can move on from looks like he ultimately wins the day through an alleged granddaughter, and even that claim is on shaky ground considering the mistakes in the vision and how quickly the family conversation vanished upon the revelation that Ben and Rey are a dyad. Ben is lost, so every family member died for nothing, apparently. But hey, this is a Fun and Hopeful narrative, right?

+While the Final Order fleet is destroyed at the end, the First Order is.....still out there? It’s still out there. Nothing in that department has changed whatsoever. Leaders die. They get replaced. The cycle goes on. We spent three movies batting at a fly we didn’t even kill. Amazing.

Overall this movie is BRUTAL. Every other scene is a plot hole served to us on a silver platter, with the biggest insult being that they are plot points JJ created HIMSELF 4-6 years ago. This man literally shot himself in the face and then said it was fine as he bled out all over the film reels and it shows. If you were anyone who came along for the Additional Materials ride of the past four years, you were greeted by this film with a hard, swift, and REPEATED, backhand to the face. There was no reward here at the end of this road for fans, old and new, who actually paid attention and took an interest in the deeper lore surrounding this sequel trilogy. There was just a big fat Disney-branded middle finger as all your hard work and cash was ripped from you with a trademark villain laugh.

And that is what we’re left with.

This review does not go into detail over what we’ve discovered since the release of the film, either. That it was never finished in the editing room. That a current comic series, Rise of Kylo Ren, and what’s in the new TROS visual dictionary maddeningly contradict themselves. That allegedly SIX different endings were shot for this movie, and in the end the one they chose looks like it was *literally* reverse-engineered to confusingly kill, as JJ once called him, ‘The Other Half of Our Protagonist’. There is no time to go into detail about how Oscar Isaac just told us that noone in the cast knew that Rey Palpatine was going to be endgame except for maybe Adam when they made him do ADR declaring it with a masked face on screen (convenient). There is no room to show you the collective cast reaction they all gave to the end of the movie- none of them good, and John Boyega looking like he was holding back from punching something (he loved Kylo/Ben as much as the audience did and more). And there is no room to include what we will continue to find out as the days roll on about the tangled mess of a film that was edited and reedited, and how word on the street is a cocky director demanded Carte Blanche from Kathleen Kennedy, and I guess the story group too given the state of things, and then promptly self-destructed in the grossest, messiest end to a 40+ year series in cinema history.

There’s just no space.

But there IS a lesson.

And the lesson is this: No matter what, never stop investing in Story. Never stop caring about the details and about plot and about moving a story FORWARD. Never be afraid to move FORWARD. Look at TROS, the mess it is and the potential it had it in itself to be, and then look at the beauty that is TFA and the love that went into TLJ, and study that shit until it burns into your brain- Do not repeat those mistakes. Go out into the world and write better, shoot better, direct better, and BE BETTER. Because these producers and directors? They’re old and they’re on their way out. Just like the stable boy at the end of TLJ who secretly has the Force, know and realize that those of you out there reading this are the next generation of storytellers. YOU. And YOU, and I, and others out there like us who loved this series with our whole heart and who are watching it bleed out now on a floor that doesn’t give two shits about it, have the ability to make sure this NEVER happens again. But in order to do that….we have to pick up that pen. Pick up that pencil. Pick up that camera. Jot down that story idea and share it with likeminded friends. Go out there and CREATE, and create BETTER. Because it’s up to us now- the future of cinema is up to us. And my god, we have so much potential….

Hordak - Peeling Back the Layers

Alright, if you’ve been following my blog for a while, then you know how much I like villains.  A show is only as good as its villain and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power have given us several awesome villains.

Since it’s a reboot, all of the characters have underwent redesigns.  From She-ra’s more modest outfit that brought out raging fanboys, and the wide range of ridiculous 80′s outfits remodeled to be more practical and stylish.  Perfuma isn’t wearing a flower on her head and Catra is actually a cat girl and not a lady stalking around in a tight red dress.  

long post below

One of the biggest changes is Hordak himself.  Instead of some muscle bound brute, they remodel him to have a slimmer build and wearing a tunic/tabard with a technological mind.  

In season 1, we actually do not see him in person until the end of the THIRD episode.  Though he is the leader of the Horde which should put him as the main antagonist, I consider Shadow Weaver to be the main antagonist of season 1, mainly because she makes more appearances and has more influence over the actions that hamper the heroes (BFF Squad).  At best, he’s a recurring character, at least in the first season.

However, even then, I was drawn to him because I liked his redesign so much and was quite intrigued with him.  He was shrouded in mystery and kept himself distant from current affairs unless it’s to make a brief appearance to intimidate Shadow Weaver and receive reports on what’s happening outside his sanctum via monitors.

In the original She-Ra series, Hordak was much more attached to Adora.  In SPOP, he dismisses her as a lost cause and in turn makes Catra the new Force Captain, overruling Shadow Weaver’s selection, which shows a very pragmatic side to him.  He also overruled her when it came to using the Garnet runestone to attack Bright Moon.      

He pretty much remains a static character throughout season 1.  We still don’t know more about him other than his being the Leader of the Horde and he has a cool disposition towards his underlings.  

It not until we hit season 2-3 that multiple layers are stripped away to allow us a closer look.  And the one responsible for peeling back those layers is Entrapta.

I’ve gone on in length about why these two work so well together as a couple.  With her lack of social skills and obsession with science and experimentation made her to the perfect companion of a man who isolates himself from others and considers Etheria a backwater planet with no concept of interstellar travel.  They suited each other as if cut from the same cloth.  

Imperfection is beautiful.   

These are the words that sparked a deep relationship he had never experienced before, that he had never imagined and we’re given Hordak’s background . . . or a side of it.

Hordak plays the part of an unreliable narrator when he talks about his past.  An unreliable narrator.  An unreliable narrator is a narrator whose credibility is compromised.  Whether its someone who is bias towards events (racist), naive of certain events (a child), has an askew perception (Humbert Humber, the pedophile narrator in Lolita.  

In Hordak’s case, it’s his programming as a clone and strong attachment to his ‘brother’ progenitor Horde Prime.  We’re given only one part of the story and we’re led to believe that his ‘defection’ was a physical disability that causes his body to break down and chronic pain.  And for a long time, until the end of Season 4, this is what we the audience believed was the case.

However, we are quickly shown the true reason why he was discarded.  He had attained a mind of his own and individuality.  

Which asks the question, did Horde Prime allow Hordak to come to the conclusion that it was a physical defect?  Or was it Hordak’s won misconception that led him to believe such?  There had to be a reason why his ‘brother’ would reject him so and he body was falling apart.  So that must be the reason, and therefore he must rise above his frailties to prove himself strong in Horde Prime’s eyes.

Yet, he meets Entrapta and experiences genuine acceptance. Unconditional love and affection from someone he didn’t have to prove himself to.  Entrapta who created a suit to ease his pain and make him more functional without expecting nor asking for anything in return, but did it simply out of friendship and love.  It’s literally an eye opening moment for him.  

From this point on, he shows a wider range of emotion beyond that of anger, cool reception, or frustration.  

He struggles to give his thanks to Entrapta, even going as far as to assure her she was worth something.  

He demonstrates regret at the thought of returning to the Horde Prime.

Hurt when he believes Entrapta betrayed him.

Loss and grief over loosing her.

Pleasure in the battle field.

Embarrassment when the Imp teases him for thinking about Entrapta.  

Season 4 has Hordak leaving his shell or sanctum to lead the Horde army in taking over Salineas and has a taste for battle.    

For Season 4, he has the mannerisms of something had just been spurned by a lover.  He disallows Entrapta’s name to be spoken in his presence, has her things thrown out, and yearns for her while desiring her work and recordings to help him finish his arm cannon.  He even wanted to face in her battle as if he wanted to show her up or have a confrontation.  

He has become a leader that is more open with his underlings now, more confidant and isn’t a malignant being that intimidates his followers from the shadows as he had done in Season 1.  

Then another layer is stripped away when Double Trouble (lauded as a hero for this) reveals what really happened to Entrapta.  

Now we see him as a man in pain, suffering loss and grieving for a loved one.  He had been the fool that had discounted her loyalty.  And with sending someone to Beast Island is considered a death sentence, in his mind, Entrapta is dead, murdered by Catra to gain his trust and steal power.  

Then he does something out of character for himself.  

Remember, in Season One, he was calm and collected, pragmatic and cold with his mind focus on his goal.

Then as the Horde is posed to win the war, he attacks his second in command Catra.  Which is understandable reaction to see revenge, but it’s a very human thing to do.  I’m using the term ‘human’ loosely as many of our favorite characters aren’t human as a race, but you know what I mean.  

He destroys a good portion of the Fright Zone, his own lair and base, trying to kill Catra, consumed with fury over Entrapta and being tricked.  One doesn’t need to be a soldier or a general to know how this would weaken his position in a war. Yet, the emotional pain has put him past caring of how this would weaken him.  All he wants is to avenge Entrapta.  

 Then we have the final layer removed.  The false hope.

We are finally given a missing piece of a puzzle that we didn’t know was missing.  We learn that Hordak’s true defect was having a will of his own.  

When we are introduced to Horde Prime (and brutally so), he completely outstrips Hordak as the main villain of the series and lays him bare to raw vulnerable person seeking affection he never truly had. 

Let’s compare.  

We went from this, when we first see him in the series.  Cold, calculating and feared.

to this.  On his knees, begging for approval, and frightened. 

What I love about this is that it happened so naturally over the course of four seasons in a way I cannot find fault or call bullshit on.  This is a character whose barriers have been stripped from him, first through love and then fury, and then fear and rejection.

His motivation throughout his life had been to please Horde Prime and his actions which has been the cause of so much strife in the series from the war, banishing King Micah, Shadow Weaver betraying Mystacore, Adora’s seperation from her family, Catra, Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogolio’s childhoods, have all been to reunite with an abuser that not only outright rejects him, but then rips away what was left of his mind.

When Season 5 comes around, we’re going to see a new Hordak.  Not a reprogram amnesiac (though I believe he’ll start that way), but someone who has to find a new purpose.  And in finding a new purpose, he’ll likely become a new man.  

But predictions are for another post. 

Mario & Luigi Bowser’s Inside Story Playthrough

Fighter: King Bowser Koopa.

Game: Mario & Luigi Bowser’s Inside Story, Nintendo DS. First Released on February 11th 2009.

Fighter Bio.

King Bowser Koopa, the King of the Koopas is the most common threat to the safety of the Mushroom Kingdom and many places beyond. Bowser is most commonly the antagonist of the Super Mario series and a few of the spinoff series in various forms too. When Bowser is not the main antagonist, he will often either be a threat running alongside the main conflict, appearing to cause problems and derailing the heroes and other villain if one is involved, or he will begrudgingly team up with the heroes to take on a larger threat, although often under the guise he’s allowing the heroes to help him rather than helping them. Despite his constant antagonism, Bowser is prepared to put aside his evil ambitions to take part in various sports and competitions such as Go-Karting, Golf, Tennis and many others, often being one of the most powerful but slow competitors. He has demonstrated many different abilities over the years but his most common are his extreme strength and his ability to breath fire, something he’s been shown to have mastered to the point he can use it in a vast variety of ways, from shooting bursts of fire to large sprays of fire to even extremely fast lines of flame that he sweeps across the floor. Bowser boasts a vast loyal army, with him often finding surprisingly powerful creatures who will serve under him, from his regular Koopa Troopa and Goomba foot soldiers all the way to the giant dragon Lord of Lightning that’s head alone is larger than Bowser himself yet followed his commands (possibly under a form of mind control although it’s never explicitly confirmed.) Perhaps Bowser’s biggest strength however is his persistence, he always returns despite being defeated and facing all sorts of dangers such as falling into lava multiple times and falling from orbit down to Earth just to name a couple. His intelligence varies and most of the time this seems to be more down to his arrogance and haste, he can put some plans into motion that allow him to attain great power but will usually lose due to his hubris in the end. He often also relies upon other characters to handle the details such as Kamek for more elaborate schemes.

Bowser began his history of conflict back when he was a baby and first met Yoshi and Baby Mario, or as he called Yoshi, a ‘Green Donkey’. Kamek his loyal guardian was the one setting events in motion due to a prophecy that Baby Mario and Baby Luigi would grow up to become the Koopas greatest enemy. It was when towards the end of their adventure, Yoshi and Baby Mario reached Baby Bowser’s Castle that Baby Bowser met them for the first time, and threw a tantrum because he was woken from his nap by Kamek. He took his anger out on him before noticing Yoshi and deciding he wanted to ride him instead of Baby Mario. This led to Bowser jealously trying to knock Baby Mario off and get a ride, which ended with his defeat. Kamek dismayed used his magic to then make Baby Bowser giant, and he attempted to destroy the castle with Yoshi and Baby Mario in it. The two fought off Baby Bowser, resulting in him shrinking and being taken away by Kamek. Following this, Baby Bowser grew a hatred of Yoshis and would often get Kamek to help him try to take over their island, employing such methods as turning it into a storybook, stealing their Super Happy Tree and other such things. It was when he was seemingly somewhat older, although still a child that Baby Bowser would first set his eyes on the Mushroom Kingdom. He invaded Princess Peach’s Castle, but was beaten by Baby Mario who happened to be present. Following this, a vast plot involving time travel and alien invaders took place, with Baby Bowser meeting his older self, actually for the second time seemingly at this point. The two had not gotten along the first time they met, but this time they teamed up similarly to the Mario Bros and their Baby forms, with them having a battle in a volcano. Baby Bowser lost once again and for the first time it wasn’t to Yoshis but to the Mario Bros themselves.

Following this, Bowser seemingly quietened down for a bit. Mario seems to have moved to New Donk City, having various adventures there involving his various jobs and a certain ape. It was only many years later when the Mario Bros had seemingly returned to the Mushroom Kingdom that Bowser undertook his very first full-scale invasion of the Mushroom Kingdom, succeeding in kidnaping the Princess and taking over the land. As his older self, Bowser had seemingly learnt magic which helped him in taking over the Mushroom Kingdom, and which is something he has demonstrated other times, being able to perform various tricks such as teleporting or turning invisible. The Koopa King’s reign was short lived however, as the Mario Bros took him down, something that would become the norm from then on in the Mushroom Kingdom. Over the years, Bowser would return again and again, sometimes accompanied by the Koopalings, other times with other bosses who were Kings and Queens themselves, and eventually by his own son Bowser Jr. Bowser also has fought alongside his enemy Mario against various threats, with his power often being a great asset in taking them on. Bowser has also seen his troops sometimes hijacked by other villains through hypnosis or occasionally other means, something which arguably riles him up even more than being stopped by Mario. At first Bowser would kidnap Princess Peach simply to take over the Mushroom Kingdom, but as time went on, he seemingly began to develop a crush on her, often wishing for her to marry him, with it on some rare occasions being his main aim, although he has always been defeated before he could reach such a stage, except on one occasion where another villain married to two in order to bring about a prophecy to end all worlds. Bowser insisted it counted whilst Peach very much disagreed on that occasion.

Bowser’s personality isn’t as straightforward as it seems. Bowser is brash, villainous and willing to go to extremes to destroy his enemies and force others to do what he wants. He has overseen campaigns to steal cosmic power, try to create his own galaxy and force the Princess to marry him. There are some good traits to him as well however, most notably he will often partner up with his son in various sports and competitions and has been shown taking care to play games with him and other things. He will however get Jr involved in his schemes, although Jr is definitely a willing participant, having told him how he wants to fight Mario again after their first encounter. This does lead to Bowser getting Jr involved in dangerous situations in his fight against Mario and friends. Bowser did also try to trick Jr in his first appearance into believing Princess Peach was his Mother, although he admitted the truth and Jr told him he already knew she wasn’t. Bowser also seems to have the respect of a lot of his troops, from a fair few of the ground troops admiring him to the loyalty of the various bosses and the Koopalings. Some of them express fear of Bowser when failing him, but a lot serve him out of genuine loyalty, which has been shown when others try to take over Bowser’s forces and often have to resort to brain washing.

 Friends: Of actual friends Bowser has very few. Possibly his closest confidant is Kamek who has seemingly raised him from his childhood and still faithfully serves him to this day. Bowser doesn’t show great respect towards Kamek, but he relies on him a lot when he’s present. Bowser has also had other advisors when Kamek isn’t present, a notable one being another Magikoopa called Kammy Koopa who he was similarly disrespectful of. Bowser can be notoriously difficult to get along with for those who wish to work with him, begrudgingly helping when working with his enemies and especially when working alongside another villain. This even extends to the rare times he’s worked with another version of himself, both his Baby form and his Paper form spent more time arguing with him than actually coming up with plans to defeat the Mario Bros. Bowser always has to be the leader so when it comes to his troops he tends to be more comfortable, especially when they shower him with adoration and respect. Bowser Jr admires his Father a lot, although he is not beyond pranking him and acting bratty towards him from time to time, still he will always go along with his Father’s schemes when he has the chance. Jr trusts his Father enough that he knows when something’s seriously wrong with him, as happened in one case where Jr went to the extreme of teaming up with Mario in order to save Bowser from a fury that had overtaken him. Bowser will spoil Jr often giving him all sorts of equipment and his own personal army. Their relationship definitely has its strains however with Jr sometimes feeling ignored due to Bowser’s campaigns against the Mushroom Kingdom and lacking friends his age. Bowser trusts the Koopalings although he will berate them when they fail, still it seems they also respect him and are willing to follow him no matter what, even in cases where he’s not actually in control of his own actions or has been possessed. Bowser has had such a vast army over the years that listing even just the notable members of it will go on too long. His most common troops are Goombas, Koopa Troopas, Hammer Bros, Lakitus and Magikoopas amongst many others and provided they aren’t brainwashed they will often follow his commands no matter what.

Enemies/Rivals: Mario is definitely Bowser’s arch-enemy and arch-rival, with the two facing off in almost everything they do, from fighting each other in Bowser’s plots to competing with each other in a variety of sports and activities. Luigi has a similarly antagonistic relationship with Bowser, however over the years Bowser has forgotten him, sometimes not recognising him or if he does, not remembering his name. However, following some of Luigi’s exploits in stopping him, such as in the events of Mario & Luigi Dream Team Bowser’s been angry enough to remember Luigi’s name when facing off against him. Princess Peach is technically Bowser’s enemy, although he wishes for her to be by his side rather than against him, however the feeling is not mutual and he is willing to fight Peach when she goes up against him. Yoshi and his whole species have earned Bowser’s wrath following their battles against him when he was a child, which possibly is why as a grown up he has taken to kidnapping Yoshis on occasion and forcing them into eggs stuck inside question mark blocks. Bowser thinks little of Toads with his focus usually being on Princess Peach or the Mario Bros, often with him himself barely acknowledging them. Various Toads have taken on Bowser over the years, such as Toad, Toadette, Blue Toad and Yellow Toad showing they can be as much of a threat to him as the Mario Bros, but even so Bowser seems to see them as little more than Peach’s minions. An odd case is Wario, where the two have on occasions worked together, usually in spin-off games, but also have fought each other, such as in Super Mario 64 DS where Wario joined Yoshi, Mario and Luigi in trying to save Peach from him. As with most things, it most likely depends on what will provide Wario with the biggest gain as to whether he fights with or against Bowser. Most other characters who are friends with Mario such as Rosalina, E Gadd and Princess Daisy are considered by default Bowser’s enemy, although he often won’t directly interact with them, with at most his forces causing problems for them rather than him himself. Also, despite having all of these enemies, Bowser is willing to put his animosity aside on some occasions even to take part in fair competitions with a lot of these characters.

There have been occasions also, where despite his animosity, Bowser has reluctantly teamed up with the Mario Bros and others to take on a larger threat. Chronologically the very first occasions of this were him briefly teaming up with Yoshi and the other Babies when his older self who had time travelled to the past wished to kidnap him alongside the other Star Children for his plans, although he betrayed the team towards the end of the adventure fighting them out of a belief they wanted to take his castle away. He also teamed up briefly with the Mario Bros from the future and their Baby selves against the Shroob invaders, although their union ended fairly quickly when his cruiser was shot down and they were separated, with Baby Bowser proving himself an annoyance to the Mario Bros throughout the rest of the adventure. Bowser’s first actual team up with Mario took place in Super Mario RPG with him teaming up with Mario, Princess Peach, Geno and Mallow to take on the Smithy Gang who had taken over his castle. Smithy was the first of various villains Bowser would personally fight against, never through any sense of good but usually fuelled by personal grievances, whether it was them taking control of his castle, stealing Princess Peach’s voice replacing it with an ‘explosive vocabulary’ that makes it too dangerous for him to kidnap her, seeking to take over the world when that was his plan or them seeking destruction that will leave no world for him to take over. Over the years, these villains have either beaten Bowser with ease leading him to reluctantly have to turn to Mario for help, such as with the Smithy Gang, tricked him into helping their plans such as with Count Bleck or Bowser has tried to muscle in on their plans such as with the X-Nauts. It seems following a lot of these encounters, Bowser has learnt how to be more sneaky himself over the years, with one time him teaming up with another villain only to turn on them at the last minute, leaving the Mario Bros to defeat them and stealing the ultimate power they were seeking all along for himself.

Crossovers with other Smash characters: Being from the Mario series, and Mario’s arch villain as well, Bowser has appeared in a fair few crossovers over the years. Since Bowser was part of Mario’s party in the game, he was present for Samus Aran’s cameo in Super Mario RPG, however Link’s cameo occurs before Bowser joins the party. Interestingly, Bowser cameos in Kirby Super Star in the crowd with Mario watching the Megaton Punch event, however he does not appear in the crowd in the remake on DS, with Wario seemingly appearing instead. Bowser is in Mario Kart 8 and therefore races against other characters who appear in the game such as Link (Breath of the Wild and Skyward Sword’s incarnations), Villager, Inklings and Isabelle. Bowser appears in the Game & Watch Gallery series which has the classic versions of Game & Watch games playable, making him technically appear alongside Mr Game & Watch. Bowser is part of the group in Tetris on the NES which features Pit, Link and Samus. Bowser has been in all of the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games series, with him often taking a large role in the ones with a story mode, often working alongside Sonic’s arch-enemy Doctor Eggman to take on Mario and Sonic as well as their friends. Bowser is also a racer in the Mario Kart GP arcade games, which are a crossover with Pac-Man who he races against. Bowser is a playable character in the Fortune Street series, which crosses over with Dragon Quest, although none of the Dragon Quest Heroes themselves appear. Bowser probably has the most crossovers with other characters of any villain in Smash overall.

Why this game?

Well, to put it simply, this game is arguably Bowser’s starring role. His name is in the title and he’s playable as more than just a party member which is the case for his other major playable appearances (excluding spin-off titles). The reason I played the original version of the game rather than the 3DS version is simply because the 3DS version wouldn’t even be announced until a couple of years after I finished this one. With the remake, I believe there are still reasons to play either version, although I’m not sure of all of the changes in the remake I believe there are pros and cons for each rather than one version being clearly superior.

My past with this game.

So before I go into specifics of the game itself, I would like to preface this by saying, Bowser is my favourite videogame villain. I believe his strength lies in just how adaptable he is, with there being two extremes of Nintendo villains in my opinion. On one side you have Ganon, a character who as a villain is almost always played as the ultimate evil, a ruthless tyrant who will happily wipe out his enemies or enslave them in his quest for power. He is not without some nuance however, in that he states how he was influenced by the hardships his people faced that he saw, influencing him to seek power and gradually lore in the series painting a picture of him being likely a product of an older evil’s curse. On the other side of the scale you have King Dedede, a villain who is more of a petty greedy jerk at the worst of times, but more often than not is willing to team up with his arch enemy to take on far worse threats. King Dedede has performed some impressive feats which show he’s not an absolute joke of a villain, with often powerful cosmic entities seeking to take control of him due to his strength, however he is still on the far more petty and mild side of the scale when it comes to villains overall. Bowser in my opinion, is a character who can move all over the scale but still feel totally in character. He can be a petty fool at times arguing with other characters over something ridiculous, then at other times take over many galaxies in the Mario Universe building his very own Galaxy to be the base of his Galactic Empire and still not really betray the character he is. It helps that over the years he has been shown to be very temperamental, with his temper getting the better of him at times leading him to become a weak tutorial boss Mario takes down with ease at the start of the story to being later the final boss of the game on many other occasions. My main point here is that Bowser in my opinion is capable of being an actual intimidating threat and also being a source of comic relief without it not feeling like him. He can never reach the level of a villain like Ganondorf or Sephiroth in seriousness, however he always manages to provide a big threat when he needs to. As he puts it himself, he’s “grade-A, 100% prime-cut final boss!” material. Finally, one important thing to note, is the majority of the time, I find Bowser a really funny character, especially in the RPG series. Over the years he’s had some great scenes and lines and, without going into a tangent, it’s probably one of the biggest reasons I dislike Paper Mario Sticker Star so much, since him being the main villain again for the first time in that series could have been amazing if he’d said a single word. Still, that’s a whole other topic I’d rather not get into now.

Now, I realise that’s my opinion on him, not an objective fact, still it’s an important one for me personally when it comes to my history with Bowser and Bowser’s Inside Story. Before the game came out, there had been a few times Bowser had been playable, with Super Mario RPG and Super Paper Mario both having him be part of the party, being usually the power based slower team member. Bowser’s Inside Story immediately got my interest though, not only because Bowser was playable, but because he was essentially the star of the game. Mario & Luigi were still the main characters as with all the other games in the series, however whilst their gameplay seemed somewhat the same as the previous games in the series, Bowser looked to be totally unique in how he worked, with his punches and fire breath being the main tools he would use to get around the world as opposed to the Mario Bros jumping abilities. This differed from Bowser’s previous playable appearances as they would often still be more done in the style of Mario and the other playable characters, usually being just bulkier and having fire breath as an option. The Bowser in this game is based much more on him acting like how he does as a boss in games rather than emulating Mario, using his strength to get around and fight.

When I got the game, I remember loving it and playing through to the end, something I’d not managed with the previous Mario & Luigi games (usually because I’d have a specific boss I’d get stuck on and give up) so whilst it’s far too long ago now to give specific details, I feel overall I really enjoyed the game. I know I enjoyed it more than I had Partners in Time, but overall Superstar Saga still holds the fondest memories for me. As a game however Bowser’s Inside Story I could definitely see being argued as being the best of the series and I definitely consider to be as good a game overall as Superstar Saga. It also can be just as funny, especially in how Bowser himself acts and reacts to the events that take place, something that I felt could be lacking at times in Partners in Time after the hilarious Superstar Saga.

My Smash Playthrough.

So this is the first game on my list that’s a Mario RPG game, which includes a few series I’m a big fan of. I don’t really want to focus on the situation with those as a whole at this point, but I just want to stress that I really love the classic Mario RPG titles and of the Mario & Luigi series specifically, this was one of the best (arguably the best but personally I rate Superstar Saga higher). I was pretty excited to go back to this game, especially as I hadn’t played through it for some time unlike other Mario RPGs I like. When it comes to the way the game plays, a hallmark of all the Mario RPGs there’ve been so far is that there are turn based battles, but attacks often involve timing button presses in order to pull off more powerful attacks, something the Mario and Luigi arguably is the most complex example of. Outside of battles, jumping is a key part of the standard Mario RPG gameplay with the games still including many platforming elements despite being RPGs. One thing I always liked with the Mario & Luigi series was how they’d often do interesting ideas with the buttons. A would be Mario’s button which he jumps with and B would be Luigi’s button. With the DS and the addition of an X and Y button, this was used for the Baby Mario Bros in the second game, Partners in Time and for this game Bowser would use both buttons for different abilities he can use. Bowser is a big part of the game, but the game still also stars Mario & Luigi, their role this time however involves them spending a lot of the time in a somewhat unusual location, given the title you might have guessed, but that is inside Bowser’s body. Following Bowser being tricked into eating a special mushroom, he inhales the Mario Bros, Princess Peach, Starlow, Toadsworth and a group of Toads and many other objects in Princess Peach’s Castle.

Bowser starts off the game lacking many of his abilities beyond his strong punch which makes up his basic attack in the game. Mario & Luigi as the story goes on must help Bowser by solving problems in his body in order to power him up, such as getting rid of a pest he inhaled which is blocking his fire pipe which allows him to breath fire. The Mario Bros also often have to go to specific parts of Bowser’s body and stimulate specific areas in order to do things such as make Bowser strong enough to lift heavy objects, or as time goes on grow giant in order to take on giant enemies in special boss battles. These often involve minigames such as the Mario Bros having to hit balls of energy at muscle with their hammers in order to give Bowser more power. Personally, whilst I get how gross the idea is to some, I’ve always found the concept of characters inside of a living person and having to navigate their way around interesting, granted I prefer it when it’s more cartoon logic than going for the realism of how disgusting that would likely be to experience. It’s due to this, despite often finding cavern type environments fairly dull, I actually really like the locations visited within Bowser and I found it a cool concept to play through. The location is on a 2D plain rather than the 3D environments Bowser travels through in the game, so it makes them unique and often I wouldn’t say they’re particularly confusing. Returning to areas in Bowser’s Body is really simple too as the Mario Bros can just select an area they’ve already visited to return there on the map. The Mario Bros don’t spend the whole game in Bowser’s body, in fact there are pipes they find which allow them to travel back to the overworld, often being able to do things and visit locations Bowser cannot, a key one being Toad Town which features various stores and NPCs to speak with. One final cool thing I’d like to mention regarding the Mario Bros and Bowser is that there are small enemies in the overworld that the Mario Bros have to fight as well as the bigger ones that wander around, however Bowser can often just take out the small ones by walking into them due to his size and power, with only the big ones initiate battles with him. It was in my opinion a nice touch which made each area feel different depending on whether it was Bowser or the Mario Bros you were playing as.

When this game came out, I remember one aspect which I was personally excited about, was that this was the first RPG game since the first Paper Mario to have the Mushroom Kingdom as the setting, with the aforementioned Toad Town being a returning location which specifically first appeared in that game. Partners in Time was also set in the Mushroom Kingdom, however that was specifically the past version of the place, with a lot of it destroyed. One of my major criticisms of that game was how the areas weren’t connected, only being visited by going through specific portals. The Mushroom Kingdom in Bowser’s Inside Story on the other hand has a connected world map. There’s a nice variety of locations although I could see some calling it somewhat bland, still I personally quite enjoyed it, with two of my favourite locations being Toad Town and Bowser’s Castle. Nowadays I realise the Mushroom Kingdom possibly appears too often, but still at the time I was glad to see it, and it still has some interesting unique locations, such as Plack Beach which features odd teeth formations. Bowser’s Castle is a highlight to me also, although thanks to the main villain of the game it’s been remodelled and a lot of Bowser’s minions inside there will attack him on sight due to brainwashing.

Another somewhat unique aspect to this game for Mario RPGs is that the main villain, Fawful is actually a character from the very first Mario & Luigi game, being the lackey of that game’s main antagonist Cackletta. Fawful puts various plans in motion, starting with beginning an outbreak of a disease known as the Blorbs, which causes Toads to swell like balloons becoming immobile balls essentially. His second plan is disguising himself as a merchant and selling Bowser the disguised Vacuum Shroom, which allows him to use Bowser to inhale everyone inside Princess Peach’s castle, trapping them all and simultaneously taking out Bowser due to his exhaustion. Seizing on this opportunity, Fawful takes over Bowser’s Castle, hypnotising his minions and invading the Mushroom Kingdom in order to take over Peach’s now vacant Castle. Fawful’s main goal it turns out is to uncover a power hidden away long ago under the Mushroom Kingdom, known as the Dark Star which Fawful seeks to take for himself. Fawful was a fan favourite from the first Mario & Luigi game, with his speech in the English versions of the game being similar to bad translations from old videogames as well as just odd nonsensical metaphors, with phrases such as “I have fury!” and “This battle shall be the delicious mustard on that bread! The mustard of your doom!” so him returning was good to see, especially as he had a small cameo in the second game Partners in Time, which helps make all three feel connected.

When it comes to the bosses in the game, there’s quite a variety because of the different forms of battles in the game. There are many bosses that are specifically fought by the Mario Bros within Bowser’s body, such as the cell-like Kretin boss, Durmite a wiggler sort of enemy and probably my favourite which is Bowser Memory ML, which are blocky sort of caricatures of Mario and Luigi that seem to be based on how Bowser thinks of the two. Mario & Luigi do fight some bosses outside of Bowser’s body, but only a couple, still probably the coolest to me in this case is Bowser himself. The reason for this, is it happens after you’ve played as and unlocked various abilities for Bowser such as his fire breath, so the fight with him is facing off against all the moves you’ve been using whilst playing as Bowser. Speaking of the prime final boss material himself, Bowser has two different sorts of boss battles. The regular boss battles are just like any other battle Bowser does, although one cool aspect to them is when Bowser unlocks his inhale ability, he can inhale certain enemies or parts of big enemies which then the Mario Bros can fight inside Bowser’s body. This isn’t just a standard Mario Bros battle however as sometimes these enemies have a move which can harm Bowser, such as digging into the er, ‘ground’ on the inside of Bowser’s body that damages him. This ability plays a key role in the final battle, but I’ll get onto that later. Of the other bosses Bowser fights, probably the most notable one is Midbus, a weird sort of pig-armadillo hybrid who ironically plays the second in command role to Fawful that he played to Cackletta in the first game. Midbus is a pretty good foil for Bowser, with him similarly being a big strong brute character, but being a different type to Bowser. Whereas Bowser is a sort of Ox-Turtle King, Midbus is a Boar-Armadillo, where Bowser will retract into his shell for some attacks, Midbus will roll like an Armadillo to attack, where Bowser uses fire breath, Midbus’s final form is ice based. Overall, he provides a good sort of rival character for Bowser to fight seeing as Fawful isn’t really power focused.

The second and far more unique form of boss battles in the game are the giant Bowser battles, where Bowser will take on other giant enemies. These battles are unique as they require the DS (or 3DS) to be played on its side, with the touch screen on the left. The stylus is used on the touch screen in order to initiate attacks, such as sliding the stylus across the screen to perform a punch, or (probably one of my least favourite DS features) blowing into the mic to do a fire attack. The bosses you fight more often than not are vehicles or buildings with the first being Bowser’s own castle and the last being the Fawful controlled Princess Peach’s Castle. I enjoy these battles and they’re not too common so they don’t outstay their welcome, although the train battle where you have to keep knocking down mountains to catch up to the train I feel was probably the one I had the most trouble with. The final battle is not with Fawful, who is one of the penultimate bosses, but with the Dark Star, who takes on a form similar to Bowser, known as Dark Bowser and absorbs the remains of what seems to be Fawful’s spirit. This leads to an epic confrontation between Bowser and Dark Bowser on the roof of Peach’s Castle, with Bowser being the only one left who can directly fight the powerful being. The boss battle is probably one of my favourites in the series, it’s not easy (although nowhere near as hard as others in the series) but has an amazing theme, Dark Bowser has some impressive looking attacks and Bowser’s counter attacks make the whole thing even more spectacular. Dark Bowser is essentially invincible, but the remains of Fawful, that when he’s hit hard enough he’ll cough up can be inhaled by Bowser, providing the actual vulnerable piece of the Dark Star’s lifeforce. When the Mario Bros defeat the Dark Star, Dark Bowser being just an empty shell collapses and is also defeated by Bowser’s final powerful punches. Fawful’s remains, in one last attempt at revenge self-destruct, planning on taking the Mario Bros and Bowser with him, however instead his attempt causes Bowser to expel everyone who is inside him.

Planning on taking over the Mushroom Kingdom himself with the Dark Star gone, seeing the Mario Bros reappear and finding out they were inside him all this time throws the Koopa King into a rage and he fights (and is once again defeated by) the Mario Bros during the credits. Despite this, some time later when Bowser is recovering from his defeat back home, he receives a present, a cake from Princess Peach to thank him for everything he did in stopping the Dark Star. It’s a nice ending and I like how it’s clear Bowser hasn’t necessarily changed but still has his good points to the degree Peach of all people can stand sending him a thank you gift. I want to make special mention of the music in this game, with it being fantastic, the standout track most people know of is the final boss theme with Dark Bowser (which was included in Smash Bros) however there are many other great tunes in the game. The thing with this game, is there’s so many things I feel I could go over that I’ve not gotten to, things such as how Bowser gradually frees different minions that he can summon in battle to help him such as Goombas, Koopa Troopas, Magikoopas etc and going over the various characters that appear in the story such as Broque Monsieur, Starlow, the three minions and many others (many of whom made their first appearances here but would go on to appear a lot more in the series and even in side modes in later remakes of the original games) and just how funny the game is overall, but I feel to list all these things would just go on for far too long, so all I want to say at the end of the day, is this is a fantastic game, and definitely deserves its reputation as one of if not the best of the Mario & Luigi series (maybe even one of the best Mario RPGs overall).

Specific aspects about the game relating to Bowser in Smash.

So, this game does have equipment, although none of it changes Bowser’s appearance, still as always with these things, I like to pick out equipment in the game that I feel fits closest to what might be a ‘canon’ setup for Bowser. For this game, I went with the King Shell, (he is the Koopa King afterall) Power Band+ and Intruder Fangs (which allows Bowser to perform two actions consecutively per turn). Two of these have some fairly steep requirements, with the Fangs requiring you to reach ‘Final Boss Rank (level 40)’ and the King Shell requiring you to get all A Ranks at Broque Madame’s challenges, however to me they’re the most fitting equipment for Bowser. Bowser’s not really known for wearing rings so I didn’t have any specific choice for this when it comes down to it. When it comes to moves, Bowser’s basic punch is similar to some of his attacks in Super Smash Bros, and his fire breath is obvious. One of the other overworld abilities is a body slam, which doesn’t have an exact equivalent in Smash Bros, but involves Bowser jumping, going into his shell and slamming down on the ground, with many moves in Smash involving Bowser retracting into his shell (and his down arial does involve him doing a ground pound in his shell, but with the spikes going down rather than his body slamming into the ground.) In battle, Bowser’s counter-attacks involve either punching or him leaning down so attacks from above land on his spiky shell, which interestingly is similar in my opinion to Bowser’s up-smash with him using the spikes on his shell to hit foes above him.  Finally, regarding Bowser’s final smash, Giga Bowser is unique to Super Smash Bros, however Bowser growing giant is something that’s happened many times in the series. Bowser does grow giant in this game, but later down the line I have another game on my list specifically regarding giant Bowser.

Credits.

For information on this game including dates of releases I must give credit to Mario Wiki.

The screenshots in this post are taken by me from gameplay videos on youtube by other people a few years ago. I was hoping for a release on the Wii U virtual console to replace them, but sadly that never happened so this is all I have of Bowser in the game. If someone recognises these screenshots from their video specifically and can provide me a link to the original I will give credit.

Cassandra is Saporian: An Analysis

I’ve seen this theory tossed around a bit, but I think we need to take a good and serious look at it from all angles.

First off, what would this add to the plot?

Well, we know Saporia was formerly an enemy of Corona, until the two united when their leaders fell in love. Shortly after, the Separatists of Saporia were formed, a splinter group dedicated to taking back Corona for Saporia.

So, making Cassandra Saporian would give her a good reason to take the Moonstone, using it as the means to take back Corona for her ancestors.

Has that always been her true goal? No, absolutely not, and that’s not the focus of this post. But I will come back around to her motives for taking the stone. Hang on.

The ONLY time Saporia is mentioned in the show is in “Under Wraps”, which, as you may recall, is a Cassandra heavy episode. While that could be a very loose hint at her being Saporian, I think we’re missing the larger piece of foreshadowing that is presented. Something that Andrew tosses out right before his defeat.

"Oh, Cassandra. Saporia will rise again, and we'll have you to thank for it."

And sure, that seems like an empty threat on Andrew’s part. But the writers of the show have known for a long time what was being planned for the end of season 2 and the upcoming season 3. When you consider that, it’d be easy to drop in a forgettable line for a (much) later reveal.

But, there’s more.

The Saporian crest on Andrew’s necklace is used as the catalyst for Xavier to reveal information about the Separatists of Saporia. Two reasons why this is significant.

Why go through all the trouble of elaborating on Saporia and its history for one episode? Why focus so heavily on the backstory of a character that only appears once? Sure, the lore at the beginning of the episode was relevant for explaining the Day of Hearts holiday. But the show took it even further, not only detailing who the Separatists of Saporia are, but ALSO revealing their crest. Why was ALL of that so important for a single episode?

Except...

We see the crest a second time, 27 episodes later.

The potion book Cassandra reads from in “Rapunzel: Day One”. Now, the RTA Crew could have chosen to put anything, or nothing, on the cover of that book. But they specifically chose the Separatists of Saporia emblem. Why?

Well, I guess we can assume this stuff belonged to the Separatists, or some traveling salesman/magician (whoever the cart formerly belonged to) came by it through unknown means.

And yet, it found its way into Cassandra’s hands.

Now, this detail is completely trivial, and easy to miss, just as Andrew’s line could easily be forgotten. But it does ever so subtly add another point connecting Cassandra to Saporia.

But what else do we know about Cassandra?

We know she’s adopted.

Cassandra and Eugene had a brief bonding moment about being orphans in “Cassandra v. Eugene”. Now, that could have just been a throwaway moment, a nice ‘something in common’ between the two of them. But Cassandra could have EASILY been Captain’s biological daughter. I mean, why not? Why did that happen to be the thing they had in common? And why did Cassandra shut down when Eugene asked if she ever wondered what her parents were like?

Maybe she already knows.

But, that’s completely irrelevant.

Cassandra was raised in Corona, she considers herself a citizen of Corona, and she’s been striving her entire life to succeed her father as Captain of the Guard of Corona. She’s loyal to the kingdom and especially to Rapunzel, regardless of whether or not she knows she’s Saporian. And it wouldn’t even matter to Rapunzel, Eugene, or anyone else. On the off chance she knows, she’s been shown to literally not care at all based on the fact that it’s never come up in conversation.

So again, whether or not she knows, it’s irrelevant to this theory.

More importantly, for us, the audience, we don’t know where Cassandra came from. We don’t know her parents or heritage. It’s a small loose end the show has not yet touched on. And maybe it wouldn’t even be important, if we hadn’t just learned about Eugene’s origin and parentage in “Destinies Collide”.

Now, Cassandra is the only one of the main three whose background is still shrouded in so much mystery. She’s guarded, she doesn’t talk about her feelings, and she knows Rapunzel and Eugene BOTH can’t keep secrets. Rapunzel is a “sharer”, and Eugene just has a big mouth in general.

So, getting back on track. We actually have 3 pretty solid pieces of foreshadowing evidence for Cassandra being born into the Separatists of Saporia. She’s an orphan, Andrew’s quote, the crest popping up again in her hands. All very subtle, and yet, all connected. Very interesting.

Okay, the Moonstone. I said we’d come back to that.

Cassandra is Saporian: An Analysis: Part 2

The door.

We all know this is going to be relevant to Season 3 in some way, but just like Cassandra’s past, what she saw in there has been withdrawn from the audience. For now. We can almost certainly say whatever she saw or experienced convinced her to take the Moonstone, or at least, planted a seed to get her thinking about it.

“I believe everybody's got a destiny.“

Now, this is funny, because we really haven’t heard Cassandra talk about destiny a whole lot during the series. She’s been pretty adamant that she is on this journey to help Rapunzel fulfill her destiny. But here, she says, “All in the name of fulfilling destiny,” and then goes on to elaborate with the quote above. This whole journey she’s put a lot of emphasis on this being Rapunzel’s destiny, but here, she kind of leaves that out. Kind of leaves it more open and vague and a little bit ominous.

Let’s roll back to right after the door closes on Cassandra and this imagery of Zhan Tiri is shown. Maybe it’s nothing, or maybe, more likely, it’s something!

Now, we’re really going to stretch into theory territory, but it’s all going to tie together. Let’s talk about what could have been behind that door!

What if Zhan Tiri convinced Cassandra that her destiny was to bring about the rise of Saporia once again? Think about it. Cassandra has consistently been overlooked in Corona. She wants nothing more than to be on the guard, and she’s willing to earn her place the same as anyone else. If you recall, Eugene managed to pass the guard test in a few days. Cassandra, on the other hand, has been training since she was 6 years old, and her father still won’t allow her to join. Captain is not overprotective by any stretch of the imagination; there is literally no good reason Cassandra shouldn’t be on the guard. (Other than the fact that she’s a woman.)

Not only that, but her friends have shown very little appreciation for all the times she’s saved their lives. She is so underappreciated, it wouldn’t be difficult to convince her to turn on them. (Except for Cassandra’s undying loyalty to Rapunzel.) Plus, with Cassandra feeling less like Rapunzel’s best friend and more like a servant to the princess, she’s not doing so great. Rapunzel said in the past (multiple times) that she trusted Cassandra, and yet, as of late, she hasn’t shown that to still be true. Cassandra is in a vulnerable state, ripe for Zhan Tiri to take hold.

The connection to Saporia? A very convenient way to tip the unsteady emotional iceberg of Cassandra’s heart.

Wait, wait, wait. Didn’t I already say any connection Cassandra had to Saporia wasn’t important to her?

Right, that’s absolutely correct. It’s not important to her, at all. But it IS important to the story. It IS important as a plot device.

Zhan Tiri is an extremely powerful force that has been constantly looming over the heads of our heroes throughout most of the series, popping up every now and again to remind us, oh yeah, there’s a big bad coming. The final boss will be in town shortly, even though our heroes have barely been able to hold their own against his minions. Are they ready to face the ultimate evil? Haha, no.

Okay, we’re in the home stretch of this theory.

Cassandra being Saporian gives Zhan Tiri an in. A wedge, to drive between Cassandra and her friends and convince her that taking the Moonstone is her destiny. To get revenge on everyone who has treated her badly. I mean, that’d be great, wouldn’t it?

Not for Cassandra.

Cassandra, who loves Rapunzel. Cassandra, who, MULTIPLE TIMES in not just the series, but in the final episode of season 2, saved Rapunzel’s life. She grabbed Rapunzel when the gondola was falling. She pushed Rapunzel out of the way of a flying ax. She helped defend Rapunzel from the ghosts. Even after everything that happened on their journey, making sure Rapunzel is safe has CONSISTENTLY been Cassandra’s TOP priority.

But you see, Cassandra wants Zhan Tiri to believe she’s on his side. She has all the right motives for taking the Moonstone, so she could easily convince him that her actions are genuine. She wants to destroy him once and for all. But, until he revealed that she could take the Moonstone and use its power, she didn’t have the means. Of course, Cassandra needs Zhan Tiri (and the audience!) to believe that she has betrayed her friends. She needs him to trust her. She needs him to let her get close to him.

So why not tell her friends her plan? Why not let Rapunzel know? First off, nothing would convince Rapunzel to let anyone else take that risk for her. No one else would be allowed to bear her burden. Remember the foreshadowing that touching the Moonstone might obliterate Rapunzel?

“Freebird“, Rapunzel: “These rocks are my destiny, and that's terrifying. What if they lead to somewhere I'm never supposed to come back from?“

“Destinies Collide“, Adira: “While I'm certain bringing the Sundrop to the Moonstone will neutralize its threat, I'm not sure what will happen to you.“

Comforting!

Secondly, I must repeat, Rapunzel and Eugene BOTH can’t keep secrets. Rapunzel is a “sharer”, and Eugene just has a big mouth in general. There’s NO WAY Cassandra could let them in on any kind of plan to take the Moonstone. No way she could let them know she planned to risk her own safety to defeat Zhan Tiri. No way she could convince them to trust her to do this.

Too long, didn’t read: Cassandra being Saporian gives Zhan Tiri an opportunity to divide our heroes by convincing Cassandra to grab the Moonstone so that she has the power to take back Corona in the name of Saporia.

Lastly, keep in mind that Cassandra never actually says what her destiny is.

“I'm fulfilling my destiny!“

Okay, great. And that is?... Is it betraying her friends? Preventing the Sundrop and Moonstone from uniting? Opening the portal for Zhan Tiri? Taking back Corona for Saporia? Grabbing the Moonstone so it doesn't destroy Rapunzel? We literally don't know.

And I think that’s great.

Cassandra’s actions at the end of season 2 left us with a beautiful cliffhanger, hungry for more. It left us with questions, concerns, and a slew of ideas about what could be coming next. It left us with a few final parting words that ultimately have us stunned and bewildered.

But let’s get one thing straight. Cassandra isn’t. Cassandra has not betrayed her friends. Not permanently, anyway. It may seem like that now, but if you’ve been keeping up with the series, you know how much she cares about Rapunzel. You’ve seen that look in her eyes. How soft she gets when Rapunzel smiles at her. You know that she’d give her life in place of Rapunzel’s. Whatever Cassandra is doing, whatever she’s planning, is for the greater good. She’s not evil. Never has been. Never will be.

So have a little faith. Not just in Cassandra. But in the hardworking creatives who put their hearts and souls into telling this story. Who have set up clues throughout the series to keep us guessing and make the show interesting. Cassandra is a main character, a main protagonist, even, who has had more screen time than Rapunzel’s own love interest. Our girl’s not evil. She just has yet-to-be-revealed plans.

Book Review

Warbreaker. By Brandon Sanderson. New York: Tor, 2009.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Genre: fantasy

Part of a Series? Yes, Warbreaker #1

Summary:  Warbreaker is the story of two sisters, who happen to be princesses, the God King one of them has to marry, the lesser god who doesn't like his job, and the immortal who's still trying to undo the mistakes he made hundreds of years ago. Their world is one in which those who die in glory return as gods to live confined to a pantheon in Hallandren's capital city and where a power known as BioChromatic magic is based on an essence known as breath that can only be collected one unit at a time from individual people. By using breath and drawing upon the color in everyday objects, all manner of miracles and mischief can be accomplished. It will take considerable quantities of each to resolve all the challenges facing Vivenna and Siri, princesses of Idris; Susebron the God King; Lightsong, reluctant god of bravery, and mysterious Vasher, the Warbreaker.

***Full review under the cut.***

Overview: I’ll come clean here... despite Sanderson being a pillar in the fantasy genre, I haven’t read one of his books until now. A friend, who is a big Sanderson fan, suggested I start with Warbreaker, so my review is going to be based on no other knowledge of Sanderson’s work. Overall, I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would; Sanderson has a talent for creating complex worlds and an imagination which makes his setting memorable. I also think there were a lot of good ideas built into the structure of the narrative, as well as infused in the character archetypes. The main reason why I didn’t give this book a higher rating, however, is personal preference: I don’t think the main action of the novel kicked off soon enough, and I personally didn’t feel invested in the war plot or the personal arcs of some of the characters. That being said, I do look forward to checking out more of Sanderson’s work. There was enough in this book to intrigue me, and though I didn’t love everything about Warbreaker, I can definitely see why Sanderson’s books are so beloved by fans.

Writing: Sanderson’s prose is fairly straightforward. It doesn’t contain a lot of rhetorical flourishes or figural language, but it doesn’t leave the reader in the lurch, either. I never had a difficult time picturing the world Sanderson creates or wondering what characters were thinking or feeling - everything was described well, and I never had to go back and read something multiple times in order to understand it. In that sense, Sanderson’s prose is simple, yet effective. It’s easy to get through, which helps the story move quicker.

There were a couple of info dumps (the two I can think of off the top of my head include the scene when Siri learns of Hallandran history from a storyteller and the scene where Vivenna learns about the theories of Awakening), but other than that, I think most of the worldbuilding was shown well through descriptions of the scenery, the actions of the characters, etc. I really did have the experience of being immersed in the world, and I think Sanderson knows how to craft a complex setting without overwhelming his readers with pages and pages of exposition.

Plot: The plot of this novel follows four main “threads,” centered on four prominent characters: 1. Siri, the youngest daughter of the king of Idris, who is sent to the kingdom (?) of Hallandren to marry their God King as part of a peace treaty; 2. Vivenna, Siri’s older sister, who was supposed to be sent to the God King, but was held back because of favoritism. She follows her sister in part to rescue her and also to prevent war between her kingdom and Hallandren; 3. Lightsong, one of the gods in Hallandren’s pantheon, who finds himself reluctantly drawn into the politics between the gods; 4. Vasher, a mysterious figure who wields a sentient sword named Nightblood.

Each of these “threads” were bound by the looming threat of war, but I personally didn’t find the war aspect suspenseful, in part because 3 of the 4 characters were “upper class” (and thus, war would impact them differently), and partly because we don’t spend much time with Idrians, who have the most to lose. I also think that the main action of each of these threads didn’t really take off until halfway through the book, and while I appreciate a slow pace to become familiar with the worldbuilding, I think the plot could have moved a bit quicker.

In terms of the individual threads, each had their ups and downs. I first found Siri’s storyline to be a little icky - she’s only 17, yet much of her plot involves discussions of sex and fertility. On the one hand, I get it - she’s sent to the God King as a bride, and her job is to produce an heir. On the other hand, I felt uncomfortable when reading about how often she was naked and how everyone calls her “vessel” rather than something proper, like “my queen.” I didn’t find her story particularly interesting until she finally begins to interact with the God King; for the first couple hundred pages, most of her time is spent getting used to Hallandren and palace life while her husband ignores her. Only when the God King begins to form a relationship with her did I feel invested, in part because Siri finally had a meaningful connection with another person, and thus personal stakes in the war.

Vivenna’s plot seemed interesting on the surface, but I ultimately found her to be too passive for my liking. Vivenna spends most of her time inciting then stifling a rebellion amongst her people, many of whom live as second-class citizens in Hallandren’s capital. It seems like that would be an active role for her, but most of the time, she’s acting under orders/guidance from other characters around her. I personally didn’t care for scene after scene of her meeting with people to convince them to do something, or scenes of her failing and being helpless. She often had to rely on male characters to get around, and while I don’t think she had to be perfect at everything, I do think she could have made use of her extensive training to be a bit more active. I did like, however, that her plot challenged a lot of her biases and supposed values of her religious teachings, shedding light on how we can’t judge people who are living in desperate conditions.

Lightsong’s plot started slow but picked up steam. As a god who is not convinced that his divinity is earned, he copes by indulging in a decadent lifestyle and putting up a jovial façade. At first, he tries to stay out of the debates about war, but once he’s dragged into the politics of the pantheon’s court, things get a little more interesting. I liked the moments when his story was less about war and more about discovering who he was before he became a god. They felt a little more personal, whereas the war didn’t seem to threaten his well being one way or the other.

Vasher’s POV chapters are less frequent, and when they appear, he’s doing something sneaky for reasons we don’t understand until some 2/3 through the novel. While I found his interactions with Nighblood amusing, I was frustrated by the lack of a clear motivation until the point where we learn what he’s up to. After that, I found him more fun to watch.

Characters: There are a lot of characters in this book, so I’m going to cover the main ones and a couple prominent supporting roles. Overall, I can say that each character archetype was interesting, and I often liked the idea of a character on its own as opposed to how the archetype was used in the narrative.

Siri is an impulsive, rebellious princess who has trouble respecting authority. While I’ve seen this archetype before, I think Sanderson avoided the “not like other girls” trope and instead wrote Siri as one who uses her impulses against the authorities that are restricting her. I was actually pleasantly surprised that Siri went from a fish out of water (because she doesn’t have the training her sister has about Hallandren society) to someone who is better equipped to spearhead a resistance within the God King’s own palace, all because resistance requires the guts to take risks and stand up to authority. In that sense, I liked her story a lot.

The God King, her husband, was also likeable, in part because he seemed to genuinely want to be a good ruler. I admired his affection for Siri, as well as his desire to use his power for good.

Vivenna, on the other hand, seemed like a good character at first, but I quickly started to dislike her. All her life, she was raised to be the God King’s bride, so she has extensive training and education. She’s also poised and confident, up until she is out of her element and has to find a way to operate on the streets of T’Telir. I thought Vivenna would use her training in a more meaningful way; knowing about Hallandren so thoroughly, I thought she would do more to apply that knowledge when concocting a plot to save her sister. Instead, Vivenna always seemed to be passive, letting the people around her make decisions and tell her what to do. She also doesn’t seem that interested in saving her sister after some time, despite being protective of Siri when they were younger. As an older sister myself, I found the easy abandonment of her sibling a little hard to believe, and I wish the desire to save her family was more of a driving force than Vivenna’s sense of duty to her people. While she does manage to do things on her own towards the end, I also found that to be undercut by her deference to Vasher. While it might be realistic to let characters with more skill/experience take care of stuff, it made me wonder why we were following Vivenna at all (in other words, why is Vivenna a main character and not Vasher, if all Vivenna is going to do is get in the way?). I also found Vivenna to be a little stuck-up and judgmental, which, granted, she learns to overcome, but for the majority of the book, she just seemed holier-than-thou, and I didn’t find her fun to watch.

Within Vivenna’s chapters (or sections), we see a number of side characters, the most prominent being the band of mercenaries that help her meet with influential people. At first, I liked these mercenaries; Denth seemed to be a good friend, while Jewels challenged Vivenna’s assumptions about Hallandrens in a way I found productive and enlightening. In all, it seemed like these characters were written in a way that broke stereotypes, and I was wishing they could have formed a little found family. However, after the twist, I didn’t quite like how the mercenaries were handled. They seemed to disappear from view, and we only heard of their actions by word of mouth (so everything they did seemed to happen “off screen,” then relayed by another character later). Because of that, I didn’t ultimately feel like they were much of a threat. I did like that their beef with Vasher was seeded early, so that when they finally come into contact, it felt like we were getting a payoff.

Lightsong is full of charisma, so even though his plot was slow, I enjoyed following him. He has some nice banter with Blushweaver (another goddess in the pantheon) and his high priest, Llarimar. I particularly found his relationship with Llarimar rather sweet, and I liked that Lightsong was curious about his past life without letting it distract from the threat at hand. The end of his arc felt a little unfair, as did Blushweaver’s - I was hoping he would get to do a little more.

But speaking of Blushweaver, I found her to be complicated. I liked that she seemed to genuinely care about whether or not Hallandren went to war, and wasn’t just playing a power game for power’s sake. However, I hated how she was written as a sexpot, using her body to distract (or try to distract) the other gods and to get what she wanted. I have no problem with a female character being sexual, but I do hate female characters who use sexuality as a manipulative tool. It’s just a tired trope, and I don’t enjoy it. Also, can we talk about how she calls Siri a slut at one point?

Vasher at first didn’t seem that interesting to me until we learn of his true motivations. After that, I enjoyed his character archetype immensely. He seems like a gruff badass at first, which I am also tired of reading about, but after a while, he’s shown to be something of a softy with terrible interpersonal skills. I probably enjoyed his conversations with Nighblood the most. Nightblood jokes and pouts and talks about killing in an almost childlike way, which was quite amusing. I wish we had gotten more of those interactions.

Other: The thing I appreciated most about this book was the worldbuilding. Sanderson creates a world that feels unique - instead being set in the gritty faux-Middle Ages where everything is violent and dirty, the narrative takes place in Hallandren, a kingdom full of joy and color. I particularly liked how color was important not just to Hallandren culture, but to the magic system. In Sanderson’s world, everyone has a life force or aura called “Breath” or “BioChroma,” which can be used in a variety of ways. BioChroma allow users to enchant objects (so to speak) or sustain life, and I liked that possessing and using BioChroma affected things like sound and color. It was a refreshing change from the dull worlds of grimdark fantasy.

I also liked the tension between the polytheistic religion of T’Telir and the monotheistic religion of Idris. Hallandrens worship “gods” that they can see and speak to, whereas Idrians worship a single god who is unseen. It posed some interesting theological debates, as well as a subtle, yet critical, examination of things like the hypocrisy of priests, the superiority complex of conservatives, etc.

Overall, I did enjoy this book, even if there were things that I wish were different. I hear there is supposed to be a sequel coming out at some point, and when it is out, I will pick it up.

Which is your favourite dynamic in Requiem for a Phantom? Do you have a favourite episode? Quote?

Hello anon!

Thank you so much for this ask because it gives me the chance to talk about this series!

My favourite dynamics are the ones among the three phantoms and especially the one between Elen and Reji because of its importance for the whole series and for the themes.

Phantom explores several themes. Some of them are the following.

1) Giving one’s own life meaning despite how tragic it is. Because of the nature of the series, this often happens through death meaning that many characters try to give their deaths a meaning or to conclude their lives the way they want to:

After all the series is called Requiem for the Phantom and a requiem is something made to celebrate a dead person. The title highlights that the story is about celebrating the phantoms’ lives despite how short and tragic they are. The point is that even these individuals who are not part of society and have committed sins and lack an identity are worth being remembered and being given value.

2) The series explores a specific setting and underlines the cruelty of the criminal world from which it is very difficult (and basically impossible as far as the series is concerned) to escape. The criminal world is described as a literal hell and it is embodied by the organization Inferno which wants to unify it under a single name.

Inferno is a group made by the traitors of other organizations:

This is fitting thematically because it shows how the criminal world twists every relationship and attempt to maintain some kind of honor.

This is shown multiple times and the story arc centered on Tony Stone is the first example offered by the series. Tony, despite being a criminal, loves his people and family and believes in a code. However, in the end he loses his family and dies, his organization is destroyed and used as a scapegoat and he is betrayed by a friend. His story conveys the futility of trying to build some kind of ethical system in a world which is driven by power and ambition and where people’s lives are constantly at stake.

In the series as a whole this same theme is mostly expressed through Lizzie’s character arc. She wants to be treated as a person and asks her employer to do as much in exchange of her loyalty. However, in the end she is betrayed and is forced to kill that same employer despite the fact that she still cares about her.

3) Finally the story is one of self-affirmation and of obtaining a will:

A person should take responsibility for their own actions and sins because only in that way they can truly become an individual.

The relationship between Reiji and Elen (and also the one between Reiji and Cal, but I am not talking about it here) is important for all these three themes and it is fundamental for the whole story.

2) Let’s start from the second theme aka how personal relationships are sacrificed for survival or power in the criminal world.

The important thing when it comes to Elen and Reiji is that they are an exception to the rule. As a matter of fact, even if the people around them like Scythe and Claudia try to manipulate them and to force them to fight against each other, they keep caring for each other and always choose each other over the interests of the organization.

They struggle to do so because of their flaws, but in the end they manage not to betray each other.

This is made obvious in the climaxes of the first two acts which are built so that they are mirrors. In the first act Claudia manipulates things, so that Elen and Scythe are hunted by the organization and in the second act Scythe does the same targeting both Claudia and Reiji. However, both times Reiji and Elen avoid killing each other.

This is also connected to theme number 3) i.e. to the ability of affirming one’s own will.

First of all it is interesting that Elen sees Reiji in this way:

Elen is a person with a very frail sense of identity because of the abuse she went through. She has developed a specific coping mechanism to survive her assassination job:

She nullifies herself and makes her completely dependent on others. If she is ordered to do so she can kill anybody without getting hurt because, in a sense, she is not killing out of her own free will.

Claudia wants Reiji to be different:

She wants him to become more independent and to accept his new life as an assassin in a more proactive way. However, she still manipulates him, so that he works for her. Her manipulation is just different from Scythe’s. He suffocates his subordinates’ feelings, while Claudia nurtures emotions and uses them to manipulate people even more effectively than Scythe.

However, the fact that Reiji himself is manipulated is not really important for Elen who simply sees him as a freer version of herself:

Elen had always assumed that her way of coping was the only one possible, but through Reiji she learns she has other options and starts questioning what she was told and what she had assumed.

The story makes clear that deep down Elen has never lost her most genuine part of herself:

Episode four goes out of its way to establish exactly this.

The episode opens with a very different and overly cheerful Elen who acts in a childish way and has fun going shopping:

This is soon revealed to be a mask she uses not to give away her true identity. However, this mask gives us some information about her real self as well.

First of all, Elen uses this cheerful personality whenever she needs to move around in a public place or when she has to interact with regular people. She uses this persona both in the first act and in the third act. This is interesting. After all, Elen could just take on different personas instead of sticking to a single one. The fact that she doesn’t may very well symbolize that this personality tells us something about her.

All in all it might simply convey the fact that Elen is deep down very child-like. She has been taken by Scythe when she was younger than Reiji and so when her identity had still to properly develop. Scythe manipulated her and took her memories away leaving her as a person completely dependent on others like children are. So it is fitting that her “normal” persona is a childish one because that is the stage in which her development was interrupted.

At the same time, the episode plays with the viewer’s perspective of Elen. Her having fun with the teddy bear is immediately contradicted by her breaking it to retrieve the data and when she later on is asked if she is interested in the touristic depliants she coldly rejects the assumption.

However, by the end of the episode we are shown that she kept both the Teddy Bear and the depliant.

Both are symbolic objects.

-The teddy bear represents her childish self and it is symbolically broken because she herself has been broken when she was a child. Let’s also highlight that in act three where she had the chance to experience a healthier style of life for some months she has a teddy bear on her school bag.

-The depliant is representative of her home town aka Mongolia which will be the end of her journey where she finally finds herself. The fact that she has it since episode 4 clearly shows that deep down Elen had always known from where she came from.

Then why did she not try to leave before Reiji’s arrival?

The answer is this:

In order to grow up Elen needs to face who she truly is. This means that she gets to finally feel complete, but at the same time she has to leave behind a coping mechanism which makes her feel safe and to accept what she has done.

This is something she can’t do alone and needs Reiji’s help in order to succeed.

Reiji too needs Elen and this is made clear at the end of the first act.

As previously stated, Claudia is manipulating Reiji to have him grow apart from Scythe and Elen, so that he can work as her own Phantom. She tells Reiji she is leaving the final choice to him, but she doesn’t really plan to as her orchestrating the whole mess with Scythe proves.

In the end she gives Reiji a choice. He can either go back to Japan or work for her. She knows fully well Reiji will not probably be able to go back to his normal life and the chaos of the situation might very easily push him towards her side. However, Reiji takes a third option:

He wanst to protect Elen and to help her to become a complete person. This is the path Reiji chooses in order to remain himself despite his new identity as an assassin.

In other words, Reiji needs Elen just like Elen needs him, but in a different way.

We can say that they develop a relationship which has shades of codependency since one can’t properly function without the other.

Without Reiji Elen can’t free herself from Scythe, while without Elen Reiji completely loses himself and spirals in his new role as phantom until he meets Cal who saves him.

The end of the second act perfectly shows what their relationship is about.

Elen is still unable to rebel against Scythe and keeps fighting Reiji, but stops when Reiji takes away her mask which is symbolic of him seeing her as a person.

At the same time Reiji is ready to die. He thinks Cal has died because of him and that he has become a monster and prefers to die rather than keep living in the criminal world where people use and betray each other. However, Elen saves him:

Elen’s two scars were both made by Reiji. Reiji is fixated with the second one he gave her when he accidentally shot her. That scar represents Reiji’s guilt and his crimes and it is the only part of himself he can currently see. However, Elen reveals that it is her other scar the one she cares about aka the one he gave her when he saved her. She claims that that scar is the proof of her existence and why she keeps fighting.

In this way they save each other. Reiji is given a new reason to live, while Elen is taken away from Scythe for good.

The third act shows that they keep learning opposite things from each other:

And it is also interesting that in terms of proactiveness and passiveness they start to exchange roles. As a matter of fact in the third act Elen is far more active than Reiji, while it used to be the other way around, especially in the first act when they had to run away.

This is also something that Scythe’s behaviour highlights:

He keeps assuming that the one taking action against him is Reiji, but it is not him the one who has come up with counter-measures against Inferno, but Elen who proves herself to be perfectly able to read Scythe’s way of thinking.

This is illustrated also in their final showdown.

Scythe thinks that thanks to having integrated Claudia’s philosophy with his own he has finally been able to create a group of perfect specimen. However, Elen proves him wrong and states that these new experiments are exactly like her and that Scythe has not grown:

While she has:

Her reasons for killing Scythe are also interesting:

She says that she is killing him because he hurt Reiji which is surprising because she too has been hurt by Scythe and she has been abused by him far longer than Reiji. However, I think that this line highlights once again that Elen really sees Reiji as a better version of herself. Even if she has grown Elen still struggles to see herself as a person and so, instead of telling Scythe that he has hurt her, she tells him that he has hurt Reiji, but she is really speaking of herself in the scene.

In other words both Elen and Reiji are able to go back to be people because of each other. This is true especially for Elen whose whole arc is about this. What is more, they are clearly presented as two sides of the same coin to the point that their two arcs and characters appear as clearly linked:

When Elen “dies” at the end of the first act, so does Reiji and he has does so in a way similar to hers.

At the same time, the first act also plays with the dream/flashback in episode 7.

The sequence starts with Elen remembering the day she met Reiji and it ends with Reiji waking up from a dream where he supposedly has remembered a part of his past. In short, it is not clear who is the one really having the flashback and it is really not important because this just cements the idea that Elen and Reiji are complementary and really two “versions” of the same entity without a personhood who is the phantom.

1) It is precisely because of this link that symbolically Elen dies when Reiji does.

When one considers it from a realistic in-universe stand-point it has probably to do with the afore-mentioned codependency. The two of them have been utterly devastated by their experiences and would need time to properly heal, but they are denied it. Because of it, when Reiji dies Elen takes her own life.

However, I think that there are different reading levels to the ending which have to do with different themes the story wants to convey.

As mentioned above the series depics the criminal world as a horrible place from which it is basically impossible to escape. This is why we are shown different people trying to live in this world with different methods and objectives. Claudia wants power and believes that one can only live one’s own life to the fullest by taking risks. Scythe wants knowledge and believes that he can pursue it in the criminal world. Lizzie wants to apply some sort of ethics to her killing, but she realizes that her gun has become too heavy for her and prefers to die rather than to kill a person she cares for again. Cal and Mio are both asked to choose if they want to enter the criminal world to be with a person they care about or not. Cal does so and dies, while Mio doesn’t and survives. The different outcomes of their stories have also to do with their different social standings. Mio is privileged and loved and has her family’s support when she needs it, while Cal is a runaway child who is left alone by everybody she cares for. For her entering the criminal world has also to do with her gaining strength.

What is important is that all these characters die. As I stated above the only prominent characters who survive by the end of the series are Mr McGuire and Mio. This is not by chance because they represent two opposite extremes thematically speaking.

Mr McGuire is literally the devil who rules Inferno as all the symbolism associated to him proves. He is symbolically the underworld itself and this is why he survives the ending and has supposedly Reiji killed. It is because the underworld is very difficult to destroy.

Mio is the normal person whose life is not involved in the underworld. The fact that she is secretly a mafia princess without her knowing might very well be symbolic of how even the parts of society which seems uninvolved with the criminal world are actually still intertwined with it even if they ignore it. Mio has come to an understanding of it by the end of the series and chooses to keep living her life in the normal world.

In other words, if the series wants to give this depiction of the world of criminality as a world which is unescapable at least physically, then it makes sense that Reiji and Elen, just like Cal, can’t survive the ending. However, they are given, just like Cal, an ending where they can stop being phantoms and become someone. This is emphasized by the last episode being called Elen. The title highlights how the whole story is about the original phantom aka Ein becoming Elen.

This is what the last scene is about. Even the fact that Elen kills herself, as sad as it is, it is something she had failed to do early on in the series:

In the end Elen chooses to die as herself and in her hometown.

This is at least one reading that can be done. Either way, several are possible in my opinion.

This is an analysis of Elen and Reiji’s relationships which is one of my favourites. I also love the one between Cal and Reiji, but I chose the first one because it let me talk about the series more generally.

When it comes to my favourite episodes, I love the last two ones where the major conflicts are settled and where there are many of my favourite moments.

I also love episode 6 because of how well it is structured and powerful thematically despite it being tragic.

As far as my favourite quote is concerned, I actually love this one by Claudia:

Like you say, we may be forcing this lifestyle upon you, but you are not a slave. Even you possess a freedom…Speed…Even in a set course, as long as you desire and work for it, you can accelerate towards any goal. (…) How you run through it is up to you. Don’t ever think of yourself as a slave again. As long as you have that thought in mind, you are granting victory to those who belittle you.

I think this quote is very meaningful when it comes to Claudia’s character and also to the series general themes because it emphasizes the necessity of facing even an unfair life and to do the best you can of it. It is just that what Claudia wants to do with hers is something completely different from what Reiji wants.

Thank you for this ask!

Why Phichit is my Favorite Character

In honor of reaching 500 followers, I decided it was about time I made a post that shows that this blog is actually what it sounds like. This is going to be a long ride full of incoherent rambling, so hold on tight. Yes I am listening to Shall We Skate and Terra Incognita on repeat while writing this

Lets start from the beginning. The first time we see Phichit, we see him for only a few seconds, where he only says one line of dialogue, ¨Yuuri!¨, which was preceded by a giggle. We don’t see him again for the rest of the episode, or the next. Or the next. There is nothing that you can glean from this character at first glance.

But that was the moment I fell in love with the character that is Phichit Chulanont. 

See, It wasn't his first official appearance that made me fall in love with him. The reason I liked this character so much was because I understood he was close to Yuuri and cared about him. Now, for those of you who don’t know, I became invested in Yuri!!! on ICE because of Yuuri and the premise + figure skating. Not victuuri, although that was wonderful because!!! Representation!!! I was just glad there was a main character I, and many others, could deeply relate to. But this post isn't about Yuuri. Its about Phichit. And because I could see he cared for Yuuri, I got interested. 

So I watched the scene again to figure out what I could. And here is what I was able to come up with.

He lives in Thailand, but has just arrived home after being somewhere else, or is leaving. More likely the former. He is cheerful, and invested somewhat in social media. He is close friends with Yuuri, or at least acquainted, and is likely a figure skater. 

I looked him up after that, and my love only grew. 

Also, we had this picture in the ending

God I love him

The next time we see Phichit, we see him in a video call with Yuuri in episode 4. His first appearances are all very Yuuri-centered. 

But boy did this scene deliver a BIG LOAD of information. 

I had been right about quite a few things from my first guesses about Phichit. He just arrived back in Thailand and likes social media, as seen by the literal touchscreen gloves and multiple IG posts. He is also very close with Yuuri. VERY CLOSE. I damn near cried over how comfortable and happy Yuuri became when he was talking with Phichit. And how comfortable PHICHIT looked when he was talking to Yuuri. 

They had clearly been friends for a long time, Yuuri even knew phrases in Phichits native language, and I have no doubts that Phichit knows phrases in Japanese.

This sort of familiarity and calm interaction is something we only really see Yuuri take part in when he is with his family, +the Nishigori’s, at least at the beginning of the series. 

When Yuuri starts talking about composer girl, Phichit is able to immediately understand what Yuuri needs without even having to hear Yuuri say it. That is the kind of friendship some can only dream of. 

We already know Phichit is a wonderful, reliable friend from less than a minute of interaction. Less than a minute. I counted. I have seen dozens of shows where it takes multiple WHOLE EPISODES to understand the relationship between two characters, but with Yuri on Ice it takes less than a minute. This is a result of good writing and good, rounded characters. 

Which leads to my next topic of discussion.

Phichit is such a well-rounded character holy shit

There are no lingering doubts about Phichit’s character. There isn't a scene where you are left wondering, “Why did Phichit do this” or “What is Phichit thinking” because we know, at least in my case. As long as you understand Phichit as a character you can understand the motivations behind his actions. 

Episode 6 is a beautiful Phichitfest and I was having a good ol’ time. 

Now, for reference, episode 6 is when I really got into Yuri on Ice as a show. Characters I didn't really like were starting to have more appeal, like Viktor, and characters I loved got better, somehow. 

Bonus points for fashion goddamn

HE CALLS CELESTINO CIAO CIAO. CIAO CIAO. HE IS SO PRECIOUS

His constant need to document everything on social media is also much appreciated. 

also this

Captain of the #victuuri ship honestly same Phichit

So,as I’m watching this episode I’m just waiting and thinking 

when do i get to see Phichit skate?? when??

I find out Phichit skates first and Im !!!!

then he skates. 

AND BOY DOES HE EVER FUCKING SKATE

Phichit steps out onto that rink in his princely attire and I am gone then and there.

Shall We Skate? is such a masterpiece and I LOVE IT

You can say what you want about Phichit, but if you cant see how much Phichit adores skating through his performance than you clearly haven't watched the series. 

I have a record of crying every time I watch Phichit skate when I watched the episodes he was in for the first time. Every time. This one is no exception. 

The fact that the audience is shown to get very caught up in Phichit’s performance made me so happy? These people, who are all there to support the more popular skaters, are getting caught up in the dance of a skater who hadn't even been on their radar. 

After his skate was done, he was still RIDICULOUSLY PROUD AND SUPPORTIVE OF HIS FELLOW SKATERS EVEN IF THEY SCORED HIGHER THAN HIM

JUST

LOOK AT HIM

HES SO PROUD!!

what a good friend fukc i love him

What I wouldn't give to have a friend like Phichit

Ok.

Terra Incognita. 

me too ciao ciao

This performance showed how much you can glean from a person while watching them skate. And yes. I cried. 

Just.

His motivation for skating is so fucking clear. 

He wants to make his country proud.

And he does. 

The audience is rooting for Phichit, he gets the crowd hyped up and he delivers. 

He worked his ass off for this performance and it pays off

He nails all of his components and scores higher than he ever has

He is so confident that hes won and he WINS

HE FUCKING WINS

HE BEATS YUURI AND CHRIS AND LEO ALL OF WHOM WERE MAJOR CONTENDERS FOR THE GRAND PRIX 

HE WINS HIS FIRST GOLD MEDAL

AND AFTER THE ROSTELECOM CUP BECOMES THE FIRST THAI SKATER TO ADVANCE TO THE GRAND PRIX FINAL

HE??? IS SO GOOD

And that’s why it made me so mad when he lost the Grand Prix Final. 

Sixth. Place. 

I love the other skaters. I really do. But JJ did not deserve a bronze medal. He was way over scored and should have gotten last place. Phichit scored about as high as the previous years third place winner. JJ. 

His Shall We Skate made me hella emotional and sob along with him at the end. He is SUCH A GOOD SKATER. 

I never cried as hard during the entirety of YOI as I did during Phichit’s Terra Incognita performance. He was so happy to just be performing. Even after he messed up one jump he continued to smile. 

That is what makes a performer. 

Phichit entertains the audience. He holds their attention and gets them hyped up and on the edge of their seats. 

He has fun while he skates and just genuinely loves his sport. 

This gif sums it up pretty well

The scenes he got outside of the competition made me happy at least, and some of the flashbacks provided some nice information and depth

and the iconic #victuuricaptain moment

and I may be really salty about his loss but i am SO PROUD OF HIM

I am going to quote something I said when I first made this blog. 

“Just by qualifying for the Grand Prix Finals, Phichit won. He may not have won a medal, but he achieved not only one of his dreams, skating “Shall We Skate” in a major competition, but also made history by becoming the first Thai skater to compete in the Grand Prix Finals. WE should all be extremely proud of him, and hopefully watch him continue to made his dreams reality in the next season!”

I stand by this statement fully and wholeheartedly. Yes, Phichit deserved to be placed higher, and yes, it was completely unfair. But lets be proud of what he did achieve, and appreciate him for the amazing character he is. 

tldr; Phichit is a wonderful character and I love him. Thanks for 500 followers!

Hey, I'm sorry for asking, but when was it implied that Ouma was suicidal? I didn't catch that during the game.

Rather than just implied it’s more…well, outright confirmed.Ouma is a character who is marked by his willingness to continue living anddoing horrible things in order to achieve his goals no matter what, but there’sno real denying that it took a huge toll on him and that he wanted to die. Hetalks about his own life with very little value, is willing to risk Makichoking him on at least two occasions, outright asks to die with Gonta inChapter 4 when there was nothing beneficial in it for him. But ultimately, themost obvious outright confirmation is the fact that he does essentially just let himself be killed—in a reallyhorrible, brutal way.

It’s for the sake of striking back at the mastermind andcreating an incomprehensible case, yes,  but if he’d honestly still prioritized findingthe mastermind himself and sticking around no matter what it took like he didin Chapter 4, then he could easily have thrown Maki and Momota under the bus.

There was no reasonfor him to die in Chapter 5 unless you consider that he was tired and suicidal.He could have actually drunk the antidote when he snatched it from Maki insteadof just pretending to do so, let Momota die from his own poison wounds, and hadMaki be executed pretty easily in the school trial. Considering Maki and her SHSLAssassin talent were something he was trying to watch out for from pretty earlyon, it would even have taken care of an immense obstacle in his path.

But rather than discarding both of them and making himselfeven more hated, he literally just lets himself be killed. His back was upagainst the wall, he’s been shot with poison, he had to compromise on hismorals in Chapter 4 by getting Miu and Gonta killed even if it was something hehated having to do, and he was starting to believe in his own act as ahorrible, detestable villain—so he went with the option that meant he wouldnever be able to see the results of his own actions but which nonetheless keptone more person alive and succeeded in at least managing to send a hugesubversive message to the mastermind and audience both.

Ouma didn’t want to die if he could help it, it’s true. Hecertainly didn’t want to die at the start of the game, because he was workingwith a plan in which he could only trust himself. If he died, there was no oneleft in the group he could 100% truly rely on or trust to solve the mysteriesafter he was gone, not even Saihara. He wanted to stick around preciselybecause of how little he trusted the others and how much he wanted to put thekilling game itself to an end. Dying early on as a result of the killing gameitself or the mastermind’s wishes would only have made sure that the killinggame continued, rather than stopping it like he wanted.

But there’s a huge difference between kind of having to liveon for one particular motivating goal because the alternative is worse, andwanting to live because you just genuinely enjoy life. And the fact that Ouma’swill to keep going did ultimately spiral out and result in him feeling likedeath was preferable to staining his hands again in Chapter 5 the way he didwith Gonta and Miu is proof that he had been considering just ending it all forsome time. The only condition he had was that his death mean something, that hesend some sort of message to the mastermind and try and put a wedge in theirplans once and for all.

The other biggest proof that Ouma was suicidal is because heknew the secret of the outside world. Plain and simple, this is proof. Peoplecan doubt Ouma’s words all they want, but the secret of the outside world isshown multiple times throughout the game to be something that inspires despairand an urge to die in any of the characters who sees it, period. Ndrv3 isn’t subtle about its implications that outsidesociety is entirely ruined and that the world is horrible, and Tsumugi’s speechat the end about Team Danganronpa and the killing game itself only suggeststhat it’s even more fucked up rather than peaceful if this is the kind of entertainmentpeople prefer nowadays.

Every time any character in the series realizes the entiretruth about the outside world, they almost completely lose their will to live. Andby snatching the card key at the beginning of Chapter 4, we know for a factthat Ouma went and won the platforming mini-game and saw the secret of theoutside world for himself with his own two eyes. His behavior in the previousthree chapters suggests that he had his own theories, and that he definitelywasn’t affected by the brainwashing the same as the others were since he knewabout the broadcast, but it’s important to note that it’s not until he really,truly saw the state of the outside world with his own two eyes that his actionsreached an entirely new level of desperation.

Even without knowing the whole truth of the outside world,Miu was already desperate enough to commit murder and try to get the rest ofthe group killed in the trial. Gonta completely broke down and became willingto take a life with his own two hands when he was never the type of person whowould have done such a thing under other circumstances, once he saw the exactsame secret of the outside world with the remember light in Chapter 4.

All the other characters either implied or outright statedthat they thought Ouma was lying about the state of the outside world and thatit couldn’t possibly be that bad, so he finally adopts a new strategy inChapter 5 and forces them to confront it themselves, with their own two eyes.

After having previously relied very much on lies andillusions and letting people believe what they want to believe, Ouma forcesthem to confront a painful, unchanging truth. And it’s so horrible that everysingle one of the survivors in Chapter 5 goes into a fit of horrible depressionand nearly gives up their will to live entirely. Saihara doesn’t get out of bedfor days on end, and Himiko even asks Maki to kill her, multiple times. Only byplanting a remember light with fake memories—a lie, in other words—about theirstatus as “students of Hope’s Peak Academy” and being “the hope of the world”does Tsumugi manage to get everyone’s morale back up.

And when you get down to it, even Tsumugi herself issuicidal from knowing the way things are in society and in reality. Herwillingness to literally throw herself into fiction to the point where even sheisn’t sure of where the lines between fiction and reality blur anymore, is initself a kind of death wish. Fiction was her incentive to live vicariouslythrough the adventures and victories and suffering of others. But whenconfronted with cold, hard reality, and the dull and boring and horrible natureof everything, she just…can’t even bring herself to react. It’s the main reasonshe accepts her own death, in Chapter6, rather than craving it and genuinely getting off on despair like Junko.

My main point here is that if literally everyone in ndrv3 is at some point or another suicidal wheneverthey are confronted with the harsh, unchanging truth of the world (and this isconstantly brought up, by the characters’ willingness to sign up for a killinggame, by Saihara’s flashback to himself saying “I want to die together witheveryone,” etc.) then there’s no way to deny that Ouma was affected by it too.It’s just not feasible to look at the results and say “yes, knowing thishorrible thing impacts every single other character in this particular way” andthen go “oh but not Ouma, he was fine.”

There’s a lot in DR overall, and not just ndrv3, aboutknowledge being equated with despair. Knowing everything, lacking the abilityto be surprised, is constantly shown to be something that has a very negativeimpact on people, both with Junko and with Kamukura. Boredom is detestableprecisely because it’s the end result of knowing everything and having no newopportunities or incentive to live. And there’s a lot with Ouma about boredom,too. He constantly is throwing himself into plans and schemes and looking formethods of entertainment and fun, because accepting that he knows too much andthat nothing is ever going to change is the same as accepting that all hisplans are useless. It’s the same as accepting the despair that Tsumugi wantedhim to embody.

I’ve talked already before too about Ouma’s outburst in theChapter 4 trial, where he asks to die together with Gonta. Whether or notpeople believe the entirety of Ouma’s outburst (and some parts of it, likesaying “yes I wanted to ‘save’ everyone by getting you all killed,” areundeniably lies), there really is no personal incentive for him to say thethings he said to Gonta unless it was true. Sympathizing with Gonta, askingpeople to forgive him before he went to his execution, asking Gonta to let himdie with him—these things benefit Gonta, not Ouma.

If Ouma had wanted to really throw salt in the wound or hadbeen a character who really enjoyed making others suffer, rather than one whopretends to enjoy it, then he would have “revealed” his betrayal to Gontabefore he died, and tried to hurt him rather than letting him be somewhat atpeace before his death.

When you’re a skilled liar, if you really want to hurtpeople, you lie to make them like you, not detest you. The only reason Oumacould possibly have had to say “let me die” in that trial is if he meant it,because he knew the line that he crossed with getting Gonta and Miu killed andit really, honestly made him falter and not want to go on anymore. He only getsback into the swing of things and plays the villain more intently andemphatically than he ever did before after Gonta is dead, and after promisinghim that he would “be friends with everyone”—which by Ouma’s standards meansmaking everyone else stay united by letting himself be hated.

I hope this clears up some things! I wouldn’t really call itan implication or subtext because there’s really no denying or arguing the factthat Ouma’s death is something he had every means of avoiding but ultimatelychose to go to himself. There were plenty of signs that his façade was breakingdown and that his resolve was wavering beforehand, but the fact that he diedwhen he could very easily have avoided the whole situation by pinning it all onMaki is pretty undeniable proof.

Suicidal feelings and lacking the will to go on wheneverything seems horrible and reality itself is twisted and cruel is kind of ahuge overarching theme in ndrv3. The whole point of the moral ambiguity of theending is that in the end, it doesn’t really come down to truth or lies, but amiddle ground. Lies which, as Ouma says in Chapter 4, “are told to comfortothers,” or “told to avoid hurting others,” are a necessity in order to survive in reality, because really, by theend of the game, pretty much all of the characters would have given up and diedwithout the “lie” that became true to them, of how their existences inside thegame were real and meaningful to them even if they weren’t to the audience.

                                                                      JUNE                           2017

 PAGE RIB

*****The writers are working on Arrested Development season 5 which Netflix has confirmed is coming in 2018 with the full cast. Ron Howard tells us he is “Warming up my uncredited narrator vocal chords.”

*****The world was welcomed to Live with Kelly and Ryan! I admit that I don’t watch it but this surely won’t help. Why??  Why him?? His name recognition, his power, his falling ratings at E!? Seacrest showed his interview prowess by mistaking Jeffrey Tambor for Vincent Schiavelli, the now deceased actor from the subway in Ghost.  Read the new memoir Tambor was selling, Are you anybody?

*****Val Kilmer says he is healing from cancer.

*****Conan is being sued by a former writer of Leno’s. The man claims that Conan and his writers “lifted jokes from his blog.”  They deny the charges. TBS showed their belief by inking him to 4 more years. Next up an animated series called Final Space and more branching out on the way.

*****We miss U Gwen Ifill but Robert Costa is doing a great job on Washington Week!

*****Clerics are a bit uneasy about scary clown’s order to ease limitations on places of worship and their ability to talk politics from the pulpit. Some fear the two existing side by side and some are very happy to feel the freedom.

*****Nigerian school girls that were abducted 3 years ago are slowly being released. May has brought a second release after the first one in October.

*****Turkey’s President Ertogan sent his thugs out in Washington to beat peaceful protesters. There was no consequence for they have diplomatic immunity. Really? There must be limits. Welcome to Trumps America. **Turkey later gets upset about the ‘treatment’ of those bodyguards.

*****Jimmy Kimmel and his wife welcomed a baby boy named Billy. He was born with heart problems and Kimmel came out to explain to his audience before letting guest hosts take over the rest of the week.  His genuine concern for children that are not as fortunate financially was touching. Of course, those who vote against such things did not seem to agree.** Kimmel is also set to once again host the Oscars.

*****Scandal will run its last season next year.

*****Mystery Science Theatre 3000 is going on tour. Keep an eye out for the Watch out for snakes! tour around the country.

*****Met Gala: The soiree for the who’s who: Best dressed- Nicki Minaj, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Frances Bean Cobain, Lena Dunham, Mary J. Blige, Bella Hadid, Zoe Kravitz, Pryanka Chopra. Worst dressed- Solange Knowles, Helen Lasichanh, Pharrell Williams, Clare Danes

*****Scary Clown 45 tells us that Andrew Jackson could have avoided the civil war. He also told John Dickerson that he calls his program, ‘Deface the Nation’.  Stephen Colbert was so incensed by the disrespect  shown to the journalist that he had a few choice words like; disgrace the nation. He said that Trumps mouth was best used as Putin’s cock holder. He was bleeped but the FCC still looked into complaints, no action was taken.

*****Drake beat Adele’s record at the Billboard music awards. Best dressed were Rachel Platten, Machine Gun Kelly and Madison Beer. Worst dressed were Alex Pall, Andrew Taggart, Halsey and Billy Ray Cyrus.

*****Pence was invited to speak at Notre Dame’s commencement and dozens of graduates and family members silently stood and walked out.

*****Bobby Moynihan, Sasheer Zamata and Vanessa Bayer are out at SNL.

*****Netflix is bringing us Ozark with Jason Bateman (also executive producer and director), Laura Linney and Esai Morales. Look for it in July.

*****So sad to see icons on Fox news. When you see an occasional clip of someone like Joe Nameth, you wonder why??

*****Michael Moore is doing a one man show on Broadway. ‘The terms of my surrender’ will premiere on July 28. He is working on a feature right now about Trump called Fahrenheit 11/9 that will be distributed by the Weinstein’s.  In the fall he will be in TNT prime time with Live from the apocalypse. The climate is giving him a time to shine. Go Michael!!

*****Norman Lear has received the Woody Guthrie prize.

*****Michael  McDonald is working on a new LP, Wide Open.

*****Hillary Clinton has put together Onward Together! The political group asks people to get involved and organize!

*****A report claims that your nipple color is your perfect lipstick shade.

*****A cameo from Paul McCartney is slated for the new Pirates of the Caribbean. He will play a jail guard.

*****The x Mrs. Johnny Depp, Amber Heard has moved onto Tesla founder Elon Musk.

*****An x German rapper, Denis Cuspert , who became an Isis recruiter briefly married FBI operative, Daniela Greene.

*****American Housewife has been renewed for another season.

*****Jesse Jackson has been giving motivational speeches in some high schools. On May 12 he appeared at Peoria High.

*****Larry Wilmore is back with a podcast: Black on the air!

*****James Corden takes his show to the U.K. with Harry Styles and many more.

*****Brick and mortar stores are taking a big hit this year. 85% of all sales still come from these stores but they grew too fast for their own good. Mall building surpassed the population and we will have to say good bye to many of them.

*****James Comey tried to defend himself with the FBI oversight committee. He informed us that he asked for search warrants for wiener’s computer and had not yet got them when he released a memo to congress about looking back into Hillary’s e mails case which was called mid year exam. He claims he could not tell us about the Russian investigation because it was not and still is not finished.  I have to wonder that if Hillary’s e mails were so fascinating to them, are they looking into the casual way that trump conducts business ?  They are probably looking into starting the while Clinton Email thing instead. I have to shake my head at the slow progress of so many of these old senators on both sides of the aisle. It makes the whole thing repetitive and unproductive.  The biggest sound bite was Comey’s statement that it made him mildly nauseous to think he would affect the election. Oh, please!!** Things did get going a bit finally and In the middle of some rather hard driving questions, Trump suddenly appeared on my TV with the President of Palestine. The media bought right into it and it was everywhere. I had to find C-span 3 to continue the hearings and skip the photo op.

*****And then Comey  is fired on May 9 starting a whole new shit storm that distracts from Sally Yates damaging testimony. There have been multiple excuses for that. I think most dems can agree he completely mishandled the Hillary stuff but the timing is just so Trump! He does not even care how it looks, he bulldozes on. There is a giant fucking cloud over the whole thing. There is a letter from deputy attorney general , Rosenstein and Jeff Sessions recommended the firing but Trump says he was gonna fire him all along. Word is that Comey is mad, Rosenstein is livid and also the Presidents communication team. Acting FBI head McCabe assures us that the files were immediately secured. The Prez says Comey informed him that he wasn’t under investigation.  The Fox spin seemed to blame the fact that Comey  would not take the Obama wiretap allegations seriously. Trump also signed an executive order to look into his claims of voter fraud. It is like the biggest conspiracy theory nut got to be president and now we could spend millions of dollars on his crazy whims. OMG! **I feel that I may puke if I have to again see that clip of Comey and Trump shaking hands. Word is that Comey hated that day. ** And now the Justice department has appointed former FBI head Robert Mueller to lead a special counsel on the Russian probe.** Trump claims that ”No politician had it worse” at a Coast Guard commencement.** He probably should not have thrown Rosenstein under the bus because his appointment of Mueller gives him a lot of room to investigate.

*****Constitutional law prof. Laurence Tribe of Harvard writes that trump should be impeached because a President can’t ask for loyalty from the FBI director. He states other reasons like Trump can’t be trusted to stay within the law. Could Comey, the man who helped get him elected be the one to bring him down?

*****The treasury department is looking into money laundering issues with Trump.

*****Scary Clown takes his first trip out of the country as Pres. While there Toby Keith will be playing a ‘men only’ show in Saudi Arabia.

*****Mrs. Callista Gingrich is the ambassador to the Vatican.

*****Princess Mako of Japan will marry Kei Komuro and give up royal status.

*****Once the Stones do it, others always follow suit. Pink Floyd now has an exhibit of their history at the Victoria Albert museum.

*****Scary Clown has threatened to shut down all press briefings.

*****Studies from the CDC show that teens are drinking less.

*****Wow!! Was blown away by Joanne Froggatt in Dark Angel on PBS Masterpiece.

*****JS.. Saw Levon Helm’s Electric Dirt on Axl’s wall on The Middle finale.

*****Brazil’s President is also in some trouble with bribe allegations.

*****A tide brought back a beach on the west coast of Ireland that washed away 33 years ago!!

*****Jared Kushner’s sister, Nicole Meyer told Chinese investors that she could help foreign nationalists get visas through her family’s real estate business.

*****Trump took the Russians gleefully into the oval office and only let in the Russian press, No Americans allowed!! The White house claims they were misled about the Russian photographers. Russia is spreading the news that they have a better relationship with our President that we do. The Washington Post had a story that Trump released classified info to them.  Once a President says it , it is declassified.

*****David Brooks wrote a NY Times piece after the “leak” calling out Scary Clown. He calls Trump an infantalist for immaturity is becoming the dominant role of his Presidency.  He writes, ‘His falsehoods are attempts to build a world in which he can feel good for an instant and comfortably deceive himself. He is an ‘incompetent person who is too incompetent to understand his own incompetence.’ Well said!

***** I personally think that some people just like to live in chaos. Those people have taken over for now. I suppose that Trump loyalists like being puppets. It seems they can’t really think for themselves because everything scary clown does seems just fine to them. As long as he is firing people and disrupting the status quo, they are good no matter the cost. No backbone.

*****The Kennedy Center will honor David Letterman with the Mark Twain prize for American humor.

*****Have we ever had a first lady whose parent was a communist?

*****Nightcap on Pop will be back on June 7.

*****Comedy Central brings comics like Jerry Seinfeld and Kevin Hart with Colossal Clusterfest.

*****The Great British Baking show will be on PBS on June 16.. Hey.. that is Tom’s birthday!!

*****The Battle of the Network Stars is coming in June.

*****People of Earth is back on TBS on July 24.

*****Marijuana business owners were in Washington this month to fight for their rights. They specifically brought attention to section 280-E of the tax code that does not allow deductions and The Respect the State Marijuana Laws act of 2017.

*****Rumors have always been out there that H H Holmes escaped execution.  His great grandchildren have petitioned for and been granted permission to exhume his body.

*****The house voted to end health care as we know it. It is opposed by the AMA, AARP, ACA and on and on. The groups are trying to ban together to hold town halls and explain just what they will get if Obamacare is taken away. But Scary Clown and all his other smug white buddies were laughing and joking about how wonderful it all is. Idaho congressman, Raul Labrador even said later that “Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care,” They all have a very strange sense of humor. To quote a song from another time, “Ain’t no time to wonder why, whew! We’re all gonna die!” It is like a nightmare. I guess their thinking is that if they get rid of all the poor people, they won’t have to look at us anymore? They do not understand the idea of paycheck to paycheck. To get money back on your taxes to help fund your own health care is impossible for many people. They feel they have to get this health care plan through so they can then do the tax plan. They need the health care money for the poor so that the top moneymakers can have their big tax cuts.** Why not just fix the problems with Obamacare like a not for profit public option to buy into?**Women are a majority in this country, how the fuck did we get here? ** I loved Bette Midler’s tweet on it the best: “GOP passed a health care bill so bad they exempted themselves from it. They may live longer, but when they die, it’s straight to hell.”

*****Richard Simmons is suing American Media Inc. and their Radar online and National Enquirer for a story about his transitioning into a woman.

*****Bob Newhart came to Chicago to headline the Salvation Army’s annual civic luncheon.

*****The IFC’s Brockmire is fun and raunchy and you can see Hank Azaria nude. He and Amanda Peete have great chemistry but the rest of the cast is awesome too. I am so loving Tyrel Jackson Williams, the tech nerd and Daisuke Tsuji , the Japanese Free mason pitcher. The Pennsylvania town of Morristown is so Monessan like.

*****A woman may face a year in prison for laughing about Jeff Sessions. Desiree Fairooz was convicted for disorderly conduct but some are calling this fake news.

*****Loretta Lynn had a stroke and has postponed her tour. She is now in rehab.

*****Oh Conan.. Please.. More of the “Gilligan” writer please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

*****Days alert: More of the tech nerd Myron Radditz!! And let’s keep going with the love story of JENERIC!!** I saw the Days punk pimp on a new ad for Geico. He is going places?!** Could they make Nicole any more whiny or stupid!! C’mon!** It is time to kill off Jade.**Morgan Fairchild has joined the cast as Angelica Deveraux.

*****I always knew that Debra Winger was cool. I see that she has admiration for Better Call Saul and The Americans. Yes!!

*****Jeff Goldblum will be back for the next Jurassic Park!

*****Always Dreaming won the Kentucky Derby!

*****Gov. Greg Abott has signed a ban for sanctuary cities in Texas.

*****Norway has the wonderful slow TV on their public broadcasting. It started with a train trip. You can watch chopping wood or burning logs or sheering sheep and knitting. There was a cruise that lasted 5 and a half days. It is syndicated around the world.  YES!!

*****Hooray!! Paris did it! Macron wins!!

*****New Orleans is courting controversy with the removal of many civil war statues.

*****The U.S. has armed the Kurds in Syria. **The White House is also considering new troops in Afghanistan.

*****Trump quote: During the Clapper /Yates testimony: “Watch then start to choke like dogs. Watch what happens. They are desperate for breath.”

*****If you haven’t been reading Carl Reiner’s tweets about Donald Trump.. you must check it out. A recent example: “In his first hundred days in office, trump has succeeded in affirming to our citizens that our great nation will cheer his impeachment.”

*****The Stones are revving up for a new tour in Europe.

*****American Crime Story will tackle Katrina with Dennis Quaid playing George W. Bush.

*****Sam Rockwell will play a KKK leader alongside Taraji P. Henson as a civil rights activist in Best of Enemies.

*****After the court said that Trumps website still stated that ALL Muslims should be banned and Sean Spicer was asked about it in a briefing, it immediately disappeared.

*****Why is frat house hazing still allowed to go on?? These are grown ass people that act like 5 year olds but with booze and drugs.

*****In 2011 a nodosaur mummy was discovered in Alberta with the skin and stomach contents intact!! Paleontologist Vinther says the dinosaur, from 110 million years ago was so well preserved that it might have been walking around a couple of years ago. It is now on display at the new Alberta museum. How fucking exciting is that?

*****Jeff Sessions tell us that he would like the harshest sentences possible for drug offenses. These guys sure like their torture and punishment.

*****RIP Jean Stein, Steven Holcomb, Powers Boothe, Roger Ailes, Chris Cornell , Lisa Spoonaver, Roger Moore,  Gregg Allman and Susan Hurt.