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popsiclemania · 3 years

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My 2020 in K dramas (+1 J drama)

I began watching k-dramas in 2018 but I’ve never watched as many shows, Korean or otherwise, as I have in this one. 2020 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I think what helps me really enjoy this over Bollywood+Malayalam+ American pop culture I grew up with is that a smirk on the wrong character’s face doesn’t make me seethe with rage and want to burn everything down. It’s not like growing up with SRK on screen and then having SRK wannabes leave you with lifelong trauma in reality. I can just move on. It’s removed enough from my everyday life but still familiar in a generic Asian family way. Does that make sense? It’s not perfect and it’s not free of its own harmful stereotypes and narratives, but there’s enough of the good stuff to make you stick around. This year I fell in love with Nana, Kim Hye Soo, Han Yeri, Park Eun bin, Ahn Eun jin, Kim Bum, Kim Yong ji, Flower Boy’s Go Dok Mi and Search:WWW’s Bae Tami. Cancelled Ji Chang wook (bye). Desperately missed Kim Jae Wook. Had thoughts on Hwang In Yeop, which were mostly heart eyes. Discovered J dramas and fell in love with Cherry Magic’s Adachi.

My year-in-review below:

LOVED

Into The Ring - I am so glad I saved this for a rainy day because it’s exactly the kind of upright citizen shenanigans my unemployed ass needed at the end of the year.

Goo Se Ra thinks the govt should work for the people but that doesn’t mean her own moral compass always points north. Her purpose is to make steady money, and I love seeing her go hard to survive and cobble together what she needs. The thing that really works for me is that she wants to be good, but she isn’t always. And you get to see her be disappointed, upset, embarrassed and hurt from being publicly kicked in the gut as she navigates a job where she appears, on the surface, to be a supremely confident, self-serving, accidental politician. What you see as her naiveté is mostly just her being a regular person in an environment dictated by backhand deals and rich people politics. She gets hit again and again, and you see what it does to her sense of worth to get back up again, how she grapples with her self. And through all this the show is funny?! Se Ra is what writers of manic pixie characters think they are doing and not doing at all. Love her friends, and Jang Hye-jin is *chef’s kiss*!

Hyena - Kim Hye Soo’s Jung Geum Ja is perhaps Se Ra’s older and darker contemporary. Geum Ja is a survivor and will get what she wants and where she wants to, however many hells she has to cross. She’s single-minded about her success, ruthless and has no qualms about bending morals to get the outcome she needs. She’ll never compromise on who she is or justify how she lives, can build people up and also tear them down, but she also knows care and kindness.

I turned to Signal for more Kim Hye Soo but was disappointed in how the first few episodes seemed to shortchange her. May try again in 2021.

(Highly recommend @saltr0se’s fic series which just GETS Geum Ja so well. Fic writers are the best)

Search: WWW (Finished in 2020) - It took me half a year to finish this. I started watching Search in Oct 2019 and raced through the first 6 episodes because I couldn’t take my eyes off the rollercoaster of Bae Tami’s life. And then I had to take a break because it was a little too close to the frenetic pace of my own industry. As @drivingsideways wrote, a lot of Search is premised around ‘patriarchy? who dat?’, which is why watching its politics play out is so fascinating. It’s also deliciously turmoil-y to watch a very clear-sighted, weathered Tami put on rose-tinted glasses for her romance and then frequently peer over them to evaluate whether it could actually meld into her life.

Catch The Ghost - Kim Seonho oozes charm and perhaps Startup was a showcase of how effectively he can be a typical male lead. But Catch is exactly not that. Go Jiseok and Yoo Ryeong have moulded their lives around to meet their most desperate wishes in life and in the process also left parts of themselves untended. There is guilt, pain and need. Now guess who will tend to whose wounds? Their dynamic is electric even when the central mystery flags towards the last few episodes of the show. I really hope Moon Geun Young is doing well and gets more amazing roles soon. She is so good here.

(Highly recommend @melonatures‘s fic for putting that sizzling on-screen chemistry into words. HOW?!) Cherry Magic - Stories about painfully awkward people are my jam and Eiji Akaso gets Adachi’s shy, nervy energy so right. Cherry Magic is straight up just 12 hours of 🥺🥺🥺.

Stranger/Secret Forest - I’ve been devouring the entirety of Agatha Christie’s work this year after Stranger reminded me how comforting murder mysteries can be. I love Bae Doona. I also love characters who don’t get social norms, not always because they are out to flout them but because that’s just not how their mind/brain works. (have to watch S2)

Flower Boy Next Door - Honestly, the opening scene introducing Park Shin Hye’s character Go Deok Mi sold me on this immediately. An introverted, penny pinching copy editor living alone and working from home thanks to extreme social anxiety? Love. All the side characters are a lot of fun and I’ve never loved Kim Seulgi and Go Kyung Pyo more. It’s a warm show, slowly rounding off the sharp edges of every character.

JUST FUN

The Spies Who Loved Me - It’s been a year of disappointing rom-coms and Spies kind of quietly turned it around for me. I want to be the fly on Yoo In Na’s wall as she figures how to play her characters. I’ve only seen her in 3 roles but somehow she always manages to be in character arcs that don’t short change her. Spies could’ve been and sometimes is the regular heterosexual fare, but In Na ups the ante over and over again, coming out on top as the smartest person in the room.

ENJOYED WITH *RESERVATIONS*

I have to watch A Piece Of Your Mind again because I don’t understand how Jung Hae In and Chae Soo bin built SO MUCH warmth and crackling chemistry with barely a kiss. I was iffy about how the whole AI thing started off and the tortured musician plotline (angsty male artists will forever be an eyeroll for me).

Park Min Young is a queen who never disappoints and When The Weather Is Nice is everything you want in a winter romance. My reservation was in how they explore so much of domestic abuse and the complex ways its traumatised the women in this family. I’m ok with the characters having imperfect ways of processing and understanding the violence, I welcome it. I’m not ok with the show dancing around whether the pivotal crime was justified/ self defence (it was).

A lot of dramas did this. I loved Han Yeri and Choo Ja Hyun in My Unfamiliar Family, I didn’t like the free pass the show gave their dad’s abusive character.

Hwang Jung Eum’s comedy style is generally not my thing but she was pretty great in Mystic Pop-UP Bar. But I’m side-eyeing the sanctity surrounding motherhood. Maybe I should read more about babies and Korean folklore.

Hospital Playlist was my comfort watch through June and July. I think its wholesomeness and non-plot writing came at a good time for me. But I noticed then that the throughline for all main characters was moral superiority and hence what I then saw as *wholesomeness*. It’s kind of what makes it a grating rewatch in parts. Plus the real life of misogyny of Yoo Yeon Seok makes me want to push his angelic catholic character off a cliff. (For context, i was raised catholic). I want to continue loving Chae Song Hwa, and for that the showrunners need to stop cornering her with overbearing romantic interests (let that woman breathe! she literally ran away to another city!)

Hospital is good at creating moments of comfort, so much so that I went to watch Reply 1988 after it, but had to drop it coz I couldn’t get into it. Maybe I’ll come back to it next year.

Once Again is what I call joint family propaganda. What it does well is lay bare the mechanics of living in a society that prizes the heterosexual family structure, the loops you have to jump through to hide when you break its rules and what happens when you are found out. I love the characters, their fights, their frustrations. I just don’t love the validation of joint families. (context: i grew up in an oppressive joint family lol). In my au, Nahee and Gyujin don’t get married again or immediately have children, but take the long route to figuring out how to love the person the other is. Gahee is openly dating Hyo shin and her parents have to figure out how to process her success and her romance. Young dal and Ok boon have to learn to stop dictating their children’s lives. Joon sun runs his company from home, so his wife Hyun kyung can work on what she wants. Choyeon, Joori and Ga-yeon go back to being flamboyant AF and the market learns to not judge. Gyujin and Jaesok have to actually work on the relationship with their mother and what sent her into depression. Just a lot of learning involved.

Just Between Lovers was a nice watch, i just don’t get how Kang doo and Ha Moon So’s relationship will survive his constantly simmering anger.

Crash Landing on You was so much fun until the main romance turned angsty, but it gave us North Korean soldier shenanigans and the epic romance of Seo Dan and Alberto Gu that we needed more of.

Tale of The Nine Tailed is probably what Goblin wished it was. I, however, will never be over Lee Rang. (Also, when can gods stop meeting their love interests as babies? Asking for my sanity)

I literally ignored everything in Oh My Ghost except Park Bo Young and Kim Seulgi and it was amazing.

NOPE

Goblin, Dinner Mate, Oh My Baby and My Secret Romance were a whole lot of NO, NAHI, ILLAAA.

I loved hate-watching The King:Eternal Monarch with the rest of k drama tumblr but someone please take away Kim Eun-sook’s access to gigantic budgets and all-star casts.

It was painful to watch Do You Like Brahms squander away its potential but I’m glad to be introduced to Park Eun bin. Age of Youth is next on watchlist.

More than Friends to me is only Ahn Eun jin. Someone give her amazing lead roles asap.

Why did Record of Youth do that to Park So Dam and her clothes? Just why

WANTED TO WATCH, BUT COULDN’T BECAUSE *INTENSE*

World Of The Married, It’s Okay Not To Be Okay, Sweet Home, Extracurricular, Penthouse, Flower of Evil, Lie After Lie

WILL WATCH NEXT YEAR

SF8, Stove League, Birth Care Centre but I’ll start the new year with School Nurse Files coz it looks very good.

#long post #kdramas #review #2020 #A DECADE #Goo Sera’s and Yoo Ryeong’s are the kinds of stories I wish I’d watched through my late teens/early 20s #Jung Geum Ja and Bae Tami are who I’m taking into my thirties.

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facepalming-since-chernobyl · 4 years

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My brain is rotting

Maybe isntead

All dumb shit - (x)

“ Whether or not you believe Lena Luthor was behaving out of character on Supergirl season 5 or not, there’s no denying that Lena has a lot to make up for and make right on Supergirl season 6. “

yeah, out of character. She was never manipulated by her brother, never killed people,never threw a tantrum, never did morally wrong experiments, never was sure she is right when she wasn’t, was never blinded by her emotions, blah blah blah

It’s clear that there is a lot to be done with Lena Luthor during Supergirl season 6 after a season of her siding with her brother and the writers consistently destroying the relationship between Lena and Kara over the big Kryptonian secret.

What a lot? All they need to do is put the bitch in jail. Tell me, why Lena won’t admit on public she was hapily helping Lex with lobotomizing whole fucking humanity? That she kidnapped and enslaved people? Why? Because she KNOWS she would end in a jail. What makes her a fucking coward. What makes her redemption a SHIT.

If there’s any way to make sure this is done (and done correctly), it’s to bring Lena into the fold and give her a pivotal role in these stories. Let’s start by making her a super friend.

Pivotal. LOL. She HAD pivotal role in season 5 and that’s why this season SUCKED BALLS. And she was a superfriend. And guess what? She used Kara and manipulated them all, put them in DANGER, because she was butthurt.

Making things right needs to be Lena Luthor’s top priority on Supergirl season 6. She really screwed up. (I personally don’t agree with the narrative that the show painted of Lena’s actions, as it was very clear that her past abuse and trauma was clouding her judgment and she was actively being manipulated by one of her abusers, but nonetheless…) Her relationships are in shambles, but for the first time in her life, she has the chance to put the pieces back together.

I’m dyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing. Her top priority should be going to police and confessing her crimes. But we all know she won’t, because she is a coward.

Sure, you don’t agree because Boo Hoo Hoo Luthor showed her true colors. Yeah, sure, she had traumatic past and Lex and Lilian abused her all the time, we just don’t know how exactly. Plus, sorry not sorry, your traumatic past don’t give you the rights to kidnap, enslave, manipulate, lie and torture people. And plan to lobotomize whole humanity because you are too poor to go to theraphy... WAIT.

STOP excusing abusers and toxic people’s behavior. It’s fucking disgusting. Especially when all what they have to do is cry (crocodile tears) and help to fix shit THEY CREATED. ONCE AGAIN.

The abuser she first SHOT IN COLD BLOOD and then happily work with, when he was magically brought to life, because oh yeah, he made Luthors look good. LOL

Her relationships are in shambles and it’s her fault. What first? She had that chances in s2.

Lena’s finally seen the light and the truth about who Lex and Lillian are, so it’s given her a new lease on life, one where she can begin to put her past behind her and move forward for the first time in her life. She can, hopefully, start to have a life that isn’t constantly dragged down by her family. And I think the best way to do this is to make her an official super friend.

I’m dyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyying. Lena shot Lex with cold blood because she knew who he was. And then she was still manipulated by him. For the THIRD TIME. And she had that life in STARCITY and she threw it away, because she wanted to be a LUTHOR. Once again, it’s on HER. She could walk away every fucking second. But she chose to stay. And do horrible

On this point I’m pretty sure she is a dumb bitch that can’t learn on her own experiences what makes me wonder about people calling her a genius.

Lena’s often kept out of the loop until the very end when she invents some life-saving device and stops the villain, which is tiresome and shows that the writers truly don’t understand the complexity of the character and how impactful her relationships with the other characters could be.

How many times the shit she “helped” to fix was HER fault? Because she knew better and didn’t listen to her friends? This is IN character and writers know exactly who she is. Sorry not sorry, canon.

I’m not saying that Kara and company are going to immediately trust Lena to be on their side and always do the right thing. That will be part of the tension of Lena joining the group at first, proving that she’s capable of helping them and being a positive addition to their group. With Lex on the loose (hopefully not for long), this provides the perfect opportunity to begin Supergirl season 6 with Lena in the fold, finding more reasons to keep her there along the way.

Sure, once again Superfriends need to offer their hand to their ABUSER and invate her to their circle. So she can fuck shit again. Positive addition, yeah - butthurt, complains, eternal bitching about how people call her Luthor, being always right, not listening to the others. But oh yeah, she can produce more kryptonite to torture Kara. Once again, why keep her? Put her in the jail, case close.

(...)now is the time that Supergirl seems to be relying heavily on the team element, and leaving Lena out would be disastrous. The entirety of the Lena vs. Kara story on season 5 could have been avoided if Lena was brought into the fold earlier (and seeing only a few alternate realities doesn’t convince me that there was no way Kara could have told Lena earlier… that’s a pathetically easy way out of the story and the writers surely know it).

Sure. Blame Kara once again for rightfully protecting herself. And sure, CANON can’t convince you that telling Lena earlier would have changed a shit. Some people can’t understand that Lena is the pathetic control freak and has to know everything, because if not boo hoo hoo, people call her a Luthor.

This is canon Lena Luthor. I’m sorry she doesn’t fit your headcanon.

And aside from Kara, Lena needs to work out her relationships with the others, too. She had minimal scenes with Alex — which is the second most important relationship to develop next to Kara and Lena’s on Supergirl season 6 — on season 5 and Brainy, too. But have Lena and Nia even been in a scene together? That’s a tragedy in and of itself. Plus, Kelly was the only one on good terms with Lena, and that could grow into a beautiful friendship, especially because of the relationship that Katie McGrath and Azie Tesfai share off-screen.

Her most important relationships are: her and her ego, her and her last name, her and her mommy issues, her and her brother. What she needs to develope is a fucking conscience.

And Jesus Christ, leave Nia out of her fucking clucthes, we don’t need her corrupting poor Dreamer (aside of the fact Dreamer is protective of Kara and is going to show Lena her middle finger in s6). Why we need being tortured but going through Lena making friends with everybody?

Lena’s been a series regular on the show for three seasons, yet she’s continuously the person left out. Nia’s a superhero and knew Kara’s identity before her, Kelly has close ties with Alex and Kara even if she’s not officially in on the secret yet, and Brainy instantaneously became part of the group when the Legion showed up during season 3. Because of the ridiculous good vs. evil story, Lena has not been allowed to grow and develop real relationships after three seasons. Supergirl season 6 must rectify that.

LOL, she was in the cricle. All the time. She just didn’t know Kara’s secret. But sure, it kept her form growing up *dyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing*. All of the characters that knew earlier were worthy Kara’s trust. Canon showed Lena was and is not. She is ruled by her BUTTHURT. That’s the problem with Princess Lena. She was blinded by her emotions by MONTHS. And for sure it will happen again, because Miss Luthorgirl is unable to understand her own fucking flaws and blames everyone but herself.

After painting Lena out to be a villain for the entirety of season 5, Supergirl season 6 absolutely cannot follow their history of major interpersonal developments occurring off-screen with Lena, especially when it comes to her relationship with Kara.

Not painiting. She was the villain. Yeah, all we need is focusing on Lena’s being sad and uspet and Kara trying to fix shit again. Because we don’t suffer from it since s2.

Maybe instead of wasting time on a white privileged white bitch, who makes the same msiakes all the time and never paid for it, who kidnapped, tortured. enslaved and lobotomize people and her friends, let’s focus on dansen, developing Kelly, focusing more on Alex and Alex and Kara, giving Nia more screen time. I wonder, why the author thinks Lena and her whiny ass should get anything more?

This goes for all relationships, honestly, not just those involving Lena. While I do think everyone should get these moments on-screen, it absolutely has to happen with Lena if we’re going to believe her journey going forward. Making all of these moments happen off-screen is quite a bad habit that has constantly dragged Supergirl down, but should we actually get to see the emotions and growth exploring during Supergirl season 6, there’s a lot of potential, particularly because of how talented this cast is.

Sure. But the others, REAL representation, are not that important as Lena and her privileged ass. Who needs her journey going forward? She had her chance. She fucked it more than once.

And now, amazing how this person totally IGNORED that Lena kidnapped, killed, lobotomized, enslaved, tortured Kara and hurt her physically and emotionally like NO ONE EVER HAD, that she supported and happily worked with a mass murderer and terrorist, that she planned to DESTROY Kara and her family. Like all she did was some bad things, but it was not her fault that much, because her family abused her and Kara lied to her, what a crime!, let’s not talk about what she really has done. The shit since s2. The list is LONG. Because, ha ha haaaaaa, Lena doing bad things, while being “blinded by her emotions” is NOT only s5.

Lena Luthor is not a poor victim of circumstances and her family. Her crying and helping people fixing HER shit is not a redemption. Her apologizing to Kara is not REDEMPTION. All of she has done is still THERE. If she wants redemption, she needs to PAY for her SHIT and earn it.

The problem is, I don’t give a flying fuck anymore. She can rot in jail. And tbh, this is what she deserves.

Kara deserves better. Superfriends deserve better.

#anti lena luthor #anti sc #my shit #gmo lena #antilena

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kinetic-elaboration · 4 years

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April 25: Thoughts on The 100 2x10

Twenty years later, I return with Ep. 2x10: Survival of the Fittest.

This commentary is NOT pro-Grounder or pro-Lxa.

I last watched in January and I have literally no idea what’s happening lol. I mean, I do because I’ve seen the whole thing enough times but still. Like specifically.

One of Netflix’s warnings for this show is “fear.” I CANNOT.

The idea of Arkers and Grounders perhaps meeting in certain ways pre-canon is interesting (the suicide by earth idea) but then the story just becomes one of yet more Mindless Grounder Brutality and I get bored. Like I’m sorry this is truly the most boring civilization ever imagined and I cannot believe we’ve been asked to care more and more about them with each passing season.

The lost possibilities of Bellamy & Lincoln. Also of Lincoln, in general? Someone who tried so hard to be something other than what he was taught to be.

Also, his story is basically confirmation that he became obsessed with Octavia because he was illegally spying on the cool Sky People and then ran into a Pretty Girl and that was just that on that.

The underworld. They’re not subtle.

Mmm-mmm my favorite set. Indra looking badass as per usual, giving her warriors a pep talk. And Kane with friendship heart eyes like “I’ve found my new BFF!!” (This is truly how I read the expression on his face.)

“Only our Guards are armed here.” Lol okay but does anyone really believe Indra travels with ONLY two knives on her person?

I’m generally a Jaha apologist but I cannot stand him in S2, primarily because his whole thing is based around him caring about “the Grounders’ land” in this realllllly awkward native peoples parallel, as if this was supposed to make him sympathetic when (1) there is literally no evidence at all that the Sky People occupied Grounder land in s1 or are occupying it in s2 and (2) he is advocating abandoning the main characters to death, the main characters are a bunch of teens, and literally no one calls him out on how disgusting that is. The only thing he’s right about is that the Grounders are terrible and Kane’s boner for them is ridiculous, but still.

Is there a Grounder named Michael? Lol.

“My shock baton’s got your back” probably isn’t intended as wildly inappropriate adult man hits on teen girl flirting but........ I dunno how else to read it.

Murphy > Grounder I said what I said.

That woman in the background of the fight with her eyes wide like ‘oh heavens! oh my!’

Kane’s here trying to be like stern dad keeps his kids in line for the sake of peace and Indra and the rest of the Grounders are like... fucking crickets. So ridiculous. So immature. Keep your own bitches in line Indra.

I completely forgot that Mountain had multiple airlocks and thus just, you know, opening the doors wouldn’t do anything. Makes sense, I’m just dumb.

Clarke > All Grounders and seeing her show respect to Lxa or anyone, even if it makes sense in context, just irritates me.

Clarke: *gives several very good reasons why sending large numbers of Grounder warriors into the Mountain will do literally nothing but lead to more casualties.* Grounders: *raaaaa I hate being told no, let’s just attack!!! ATTACK!*

“He shouldn’t have attacked my ship.” Honestly I think part of why S2 Clarke is my favorite is because I really identify with her, surrounded by idiots, just doing her best to get fucking anything done and done right.

“You’re very brave under the Commander’s protection, aren’t you?” DUDE. DUDE. You literally just reminded everyone that this five foot tall blonde teenage girl roasted your brother and several hundred others alive and you think the commander’s protection is why she’s brave? She’s brave because she’s smarter and tougher than you, duh.

And after all this Lxa’s like “Quint’s right.” Um he’s truly not though??? Ugh, the stupidity irritates me.

“Hook up” for “alliance” I am DYING.

Kane is absolutely the worst faux-father figure. Encouraging Octavia to get her ass kicked by idiots who are training for no reason...

And then this bitch (Quint) tries to kill Clarke as if that were even remotely a good idea... what if you were successful? What then? Lxa would torture you for like 100 days and then kill you start thinking things through.

I miss Byrne in that she was annoying but at least had, like, a perspective and purpose, BUT that was a cool death scene. A good sort of shock.

“Work detail” is such an odd phrase, like... one would think....everyone works?? It seems to be code for “mop some floors.”

I’m gonna be honest, the search for the CoL was the clear weak point of S2 for me but Murphy & Jaha are an interesting pair to share screen time.

Murphy: hesitates to accompany Jaha to Wells’s grave until he sees the possibility of getting a firearm of his own, then falls in love. You had me at ‘can hold a gun!’

They really are wasting bullets. Those are...kinda a finite resource? Also you’d think that these literal members of the Guard (based on their jackets) already know how guns work.

Kane really is devoted to this I’m Your Daddy thing, huh? “Look at me, shooting this gun, I’m so cool--don’t you want to be cool like me? I can teach you.” (And O in the back sharpening her sword like she knows what she’s doing.)

I don’t get how Mount Weather could influence Grounder legend given that they’ve known about Grounders for less than a generation, and they tend to destroy anyone they capture, not, like, release them back into their villages? Cool idea though!

Octavia, the secret weapon, exploitable by both sides because she knows both sides, is an interesting path SOMEone at SOME point should have gone down, or should go down, like in fic. Just putting that out there.

See, literally, what did I say? Quint does not even succeed in killing Clarke and he’s sentenced to death in 0.5 seconds. You gotta think ahead man!!

Lol I’ve seen this how many times and only now am I hearing that the word “Pauna” (which I’ve also been mispronouncing) is in fact in the episode. I always thought that was extra-canonical.

Pretty hilarious that Clarke, attempting to run away from the Irradiated Gorilla, leads everyone right to...the home of the Irradiated Gorilla. AKA the National Zoo.

Look the only thing I really have to say about this entire story line is that it’s pretty clearly only here to make sure Clarke, the main character, has something to do in an episode that isn’t really about her, like it’s straight up Filler just like the Bellamy Scales a Cliff episode, and it’s dorky and laughable and awful CGI and I get that--but I still maintain that the concept of “animals from the zoo survived and are still out there in mutated form” is cool and we should do more with that, as a fandom.

Also....moose? How’d that get there??

“Leave me” Lexa says, as if it weren’t incredibly easy for Clarke to save her. Like...why do you give up so easy all the time??? Grounders are weak. The slightest thing happens and it’s either “Time to kill you” or “Time to die.”

Murphy, unimpressed by the beauty of Earth.

Completely forgot that elder Murphy’s name was Alex. Put that one in my back pocket.

This Jaha and Murphy scene at Wells’s grave is the best of a fairly lackluster episode. “Clarke sugar-coated it for you, didn’t she?” “Good can come out of even the darkest acts, John.” “Camp You is that way.”

(Also...when did Clarke get a chance to talk to him? Was this over video in S1? I guess it must have been since she’s been busy in S2.)

When Kane lets Octavia fight the Grounder he is 100% doing it for himself and the alliance. He’s using her.

And somehow this is the ONLY time Octavia lost a fight. I wish the show had acknowledged more, as it does here, that tenacity is a great virtue but it’s not the only virtue. Also the Grounders truly are canonically terrible at what they do.

My favorite O characterization is when she’s just a blank slate for people to write on because she never was able to create a personality for herself. Because I think it’s the most true to her backstory, which seems only intermittently relevant imho. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” “I would like to be stronger,” hence “I shall get beaten up.”

*Sings* Lxa is a terrible leaaaaaader!!! Getting all up in Clarke’s head trying to tell her that caring about not constantly killing people is..............somehow.....................bad??? Lol.

This scene here where Lxa provides the groundwork for the Ai-in-Commanders thing, is probably where the show began its downhill slide. Don’t get me wrong, I love S2 as a whole--most of this nonsense didn’t really come up until S3--and S3 itself has good ideas, including the AI thing, but they were just realized so badly...... Makes me sad. We could have had so much more!

“Don’t be afraid, death is not the end,” is like......the least helpful thing to say. Yet again, Clarke uses her brain and figures out an actual plan, as opposed to “die heroically” which is really all the supposedly genius Lxa ever has. “Die heroically” or “Save own ass at others’ expense I said what I said.

I’m so salty.... I can’t even believe myself.

I enjoy the Indra and Octavia relationship.

So I’m going to say that I always assumed, and still basically assume, that the reason Indra chose Octavia for a second is that she really did think there was something special in her when she saw her fight. Like that’s all. Just like she would with a Grounder kid who wanted to be a warrior. But I think it would be interesting if she’s thinking just as Kane is: that Octavia is a useful bridge between the two peoples, that perhaps, she could get something from her. (Counter spy?)

“No one gives anything without expecting something in return.” Early John Murphy philosophy synthesized.

What the fuck is Jaha eating? Little...food pellets.

It’s true that he’s being cynical but it’s ALSO true that Jaha is withholding important truth from him and ultimately, arguably, using him.

“You didn’t give a damn about us. You still don’t, that’s why you’re not fighting for this kids in Mount Weather.” SOMEONE FINALLY SAID IT. THANK YOU MURPHY. MVP of this ep.

“I was pardoned, slate wiped clean, I’m still treated like dirt.” The treatise of the Ark AU thanks.

More patented Murphy nose rubbing.

Murphy and Raven, both pulled in, to some degree, by cultists.

Murphy and Octavia, both manipulated by more powerful adults for their own ends.

Jaha is so... he has all these peace and love, everyone is accepted, nice ideas and beliefs and faith, but he also does not care at all about sacrificing a few here and there. He may remember Alex Murphy but he doesn’t really care, he’s not really haunted. Remembering is like a courtesy. He may miss his son but he still ultimately believes, even hearing how utterly stupid Wells’s death was, that it was worth it for some unknown greater good. And he’s willing to give up on people who aren’t even dead yet, just write them off as an acceptable loss, even though they’re his people and a subset of his people to whom he owes a particular debt, and still consider this sacrifice, not even yet made, to be worth it for this bigger plan. There are a lot of things I respect about Jaha as a leader, and surely in a universe of terrible leaders he is not the worst, but this is his fatal flaw, what keeps him from being good. Real leaders do accept that losses will happen, as Lxa says, but they don’t seek out losses and they don’t merely catalogue them and then move on. They feel them, and accept responsibility for them, and carry them forward.

No I am not talking about Clarke, although within this universe, she comes closer to the ideal.

The story line with Lincoln, Bellamy, and the Reapers is like nightmare fuel if I think about it too much.

Indra, with the tiniest slice of meat possible on a huge plate: “Eat! Get strong!”

Kane, trying to be sexy and seduce a new friend: “Thank you.”

Kane and Octavia are talking and Indra is just in the background, sitting on a tree stump, brooding in the most photogenic way possible, very ‘google earth, always taking pictures’ of her.

I’m sorry but I can’t stop seeing Kane’s whole demeanor in literally every scene of this episode as like “Attempted Daddy.” Not in the paternal sense.

“You’re asking me to be a spy?” / “I’m asking you.......... yes, to be a spy, that’s exactly it.”

Objectively ridiculous for Octavia to think the Grounders are her people but, I get it, she’s desperate for people of some sort.

“There’s a million ways to die out there” should have been the title of the series. More accurate than “The 100.”

“If it’s not your time than nothing can kill you” IS everything infuriating about Jaha in one line. Saying ‘it’s just what was meant to be’ is a pretty easy way to avoid responsibility for anything, ever, and it’s extra sketchy from someone who, as a leader, knows or should know that his actions have consequences for other people, sometimes life or death ones. I mean...everyone but he and Murphy did die searching for the CoL.

We REALLY need more fic that utilizes Jaha as a weird guru type.

“You wanna stop being treated like a criminal then you have to stop thinking that that’s all you are.”

Here, Clarke comes up with yet another smart idea. How many is that in one episode? She’s too smart, guys, just too smart.

That said, the first time I watched this ep with my mom (the second time in general for me, the first time for her), when Clarke explained her ‘release the Grounder prisoners’ plan, she was like “...Duh? I thought that was already the plan? Isn’t that what Bellamy was going in there to do?” Basically most people on the show < Clarke < my mom.

The tragedy of Lincoln’s addiction story line really does get to me.

I’m a little insulted on Bellamy’s behalf that he was marked Harvest lol.

I just watched the episode and I heard them explain their plan... but I still don’t really see how it was going to work. Like just... cause chaos and let Bellamy run inside? Kind of feel like someone would have caught him at some point, and also--doesn’t that run a significant chance of getting Lincoln killed? Oh well. It all works out eventually. Mostly.

Anyway, not the greatest episode, but it had its moments. The Jaha and Murphy story line was good, and I actually enjoyed the Octavia, Kane, and Indra stuff more than I thought or remembered. But it’s always kind of a bummer when one or both mains get lackluster filler plots--and in this case it really was both--I mean, Bellamy’s was important, but it wasn’t very long. And none of my faves: no Mount Weather, no Jasper and Monty, no Raven.

It still fucks me up that Liz Phair wrote music for this show.

#the year 2020 #2020: fandom thoughts #2020: the 100 s2

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