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killervelveteenrabbit · 3 months

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"The Ghost and Molly McGee", Ten Years After

Molly’s ongoing work to improve the economic, cultural, and mental well-being of Brighton has earned her the love and respect of everyone in town, a few write-ups in statewide and national publications… and a full scholarship to the University of Iowa’s civil and environmental engineering program. She’s returned to Brighton, working for City Hall as assistant city planner (with her dad as her boss, which isn’t awkward at all, really) while earning her master’s online.

Molly wasn’t alone while she attended UI—Libby was her dormmate all four years that she was there. She earned a scholarship of her own, majoring in English. She also returned to Brighton after graduating, becoming a part-time reporter for the town newspaper while helping run her mother’s bookstore. All of this is in addition to her literary career. Matias, her father, took a second look at the fantasy novel she wrote and realized it was publication-worthy. It wasn’t a best seller, but the royalties from this and two other books Libby has written since let her live comfortably and pursue her passions in life. Her latest project is a series of books helping small children understand and live with the effects of divorce.

Molly and Ollie hit a rough patch after an admittedly stupid argument during their senior year of high school, and their two-month breakup proved just as hard on their respective families as it was on each other. They got back together just in time for graduation from Brighton High, only to part ways as Molly went to UI and Oliver headed for Iowa State. But they carried out a successful medium-distance relationship (it was only a two-hour drive between the two campuses).

Ollie has parlayed his experience as a researcher for his parents’ MeTube videos into a career as a freelance researcher for an assortment of psychological and medical foundations. While he travels all over the Midwest and occasionally beyond, he’s based out of Brighton… specifically, the rental house he shares with Molly. Ollie and Molly are practically married already, but their parents are eager for them to make it official. The couple are waiting a while to save enough money to stage the dream wedding and after-party they always wanted about without breaking the bank.

Several years ago, an ill-advised deal involving a shipment of counterfeit designer smartwatches and the Uzbek mafia landed Darryl in hotter water than usual. He’s lucky all he got away with was lockdown in juvie until his 21st birthday… which got commuted to two hundred hours of community service and time served due to an unexpected (and slightly suspicious) governor’s pardon. At any rate, the whole debacle soured Darryl on similar schemes. He’s kept his nose clean since then, barring a few school detentions. He takes business courses at a local community college with plans to transfer to a four-year institution this fall. His current side hustle involves promotions and advertising for assorted boutiques and under-21 nightclubs that have popped up in Brighton's revitalized downtown.

June lives away from home, majoring at Drake University. But she remains Darryl’s best friend, the only person outside his family who’s consistently been there for him after his schemes blew up in his face—figuratively and almost literally; she was the one who detected that leak in the ammonium nitrate storage tank Darryl stashed out near the water tower. They even dated for a while before mutually acknowledging the situation was “weird” and deciding they were better off as friends. On a related note, maybe Esther shouldn’t have paid out all that money to have her wedding dress remade.

Pete and Sharon are still happily married. Pete takes great pride in the improvements he’s helped make for his adopted hometown of Brighton, and he’s especially flattered that his daughter is following in his footsteps. The town’s successes have become Pete’s successes—in the last ten years, he’s fixed up the family home and bought his first non-used car. He’s even dusted off his vinyl for a few gigs at some of the new clubs downtown. Meanwhile, Sharon offers painting classes at the local community center and retirement home. These days, she primarily uses her Gig Pig account to set up painting parties in and around town, sometimes as far out as Perfektborg.

The Chens’ enlightenment about the true nature of ghosts has led them to step away from their “Ghost Chaser Chens” MeTube channel. Ruben has had far more luck marketing his brand of small-batch root beer, now available in grocery and convenience stores all over the state. Recently, Esther inspired Ruben to introduce a “spiked” version flavored with Habanero peppers. Reception has been mixed.

Grandma Nin and her friend Patty are the self-described “Bad Girls of Brighton Hills”, but their adventures have proven more constructive than mischievous. They’ve organized concerts at the bandshell, joined the Senior Construction Crew on home-repair projects for needy families, and hosted a weekly potluck dinner/board game session in the home’s cafeteria. These dinners always feature Patty’s homemade gumbo—Nin helped her fine-tune the recipe so now it’s actually edible.

The McGees look forward to David and Emmie’s annual visits, a chance to catch up with family and connect with their heritage. The Thai lessons Molly took on Triolingo have helped her feel slightly more at ease when the Suksais come to call. Also, Sharon has tried practicing some Thai dishes, with Pete’s assistance and (critically) while Nin isn’t in the vicinity.

A year after Davenport’s closed its doors, the family rolled the dice and started a supermarket specializing in organic groceries, local produce, and hard-to-find foreign brands… items Bizmart couldn’t or wouldn’t accommodate. The gamble paid off, and Davenport's Turnip Patch sells and ships to customers across the region—yes, even to Perfektborg. (Sharon and Nin are frequent visitors since they carry Thai specialties like jackfruit, pandan extract, and even durian.) Andrea maintains the store’s computer systems but pointedly avoids appearing in advertising. She’s back on her socials, but not as an influencer. Her “Girl Code” series on MeTube provides tips and tricks for entry-level coding enthusiasts. The videos feature occasional cameos by her girlfriend Alina, who’s also taken an interest in the subject.

Three months after Scratch cast off his Chairman’s robes, they settled upon the recently departed spirit of a retired manager of an IRS branch office. Since then, the Ghost Council has basked in bureaucratic bliss, leaving the denizens of Ghost World alone and happy. Not long after Todd left, Molly conducted a séance and told Geoff what happened to Scratch. He realizes it will be a while before he sees his friend again, but at least he has Jeff to keep him company.

Todd and Adia have photographed wild horse herds in Montana, kayaked off the Antarctic Peninsula, biked through Croatia, snorkeled with manta rays in Hawaii, and helped refurbish a centuries-old mosque in Brunei… and that’s just in the last year! Their adventures included a meditation retreat in India where Todd astrally projected his spirit out of his body for a few minutes. He “came back” talking about a young lady back in Brighton who showed him how to live even though he was already “dead”. On their next swing back to the United States, Molly is the first person they plan to visit.

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tgammsideblog · 4 months

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How 100% Molly Mcgee¨ tackles mixed race crisis

The Ghost and Molly Mcgee, while being a funny comedy slice of life series, it has episodes that explore complicated real-life topics that the audience is able to relate to in more than one way.

One of these episodes is the season 2 episode ¨100% Molly Mcgee¨ that explores how Molly, who is mixed race/culture (Irish and Thai) feels alienated from her thai mother side of the family when her uncle David and cousin Emmie come to visit. Molly feels disconnected from her thai side and feels like she isn’t ¨thai¨ enough for that part of her family.

In this post I’m going to talk about how this episode tackles this theme, how it affects Molly and the rest of the characters involved and the lesson it gives.

Let’s start:

What does means to be mixed race/multi-ethnic?

According to dictionary.cambridge.org being mixed race means ¨a person whose parents are of different races¨. According to wikipedia being multi-ethnic refers to ¨people who are of more than one ethnicity.¨ In other pages, the term mixed race is used interchangeably to refer to people whose parents are from different races or different ethnic backgrounds since both terms are often correlated with each other. However, it worth of remembering that they mean different things. As you can belong to two different cultures but not be mixed race.

In the context of the series, Molly is a mixed race and multi-ethnic teen. She is half Thai from her mother side (Sharon) and half Irish from her father side (Pete). She is asian, southeast asian to be more specific, and white-european. The episode ¨100% Molly Mcgee¨ is about her thai side of the family and how she feels like she isn't connected enough to thai culture.

Molly’s conflict about being mixed race in the episode

¨100% Molly Mcgee¨ starts with Molly giving a presentation to her school classmates about her Thai heritage and her maternal family tree. She explains that her grandparents inmigrated from Thailand to America and that their surname is Suksai. Grandma Nin had two children: Sharon, Molly’s mom and David, Molly’s uncle, who himself got married and had a daughter named Emmie. Molly adds that Uncle David and Emmie are coming today from New York to visit the Mcgees after years of not seeing each other.

This intro is a good way to give the idea to someone who has never watched the series before that Molly is part thai and where her heritage comes from. I like how there are references to Thai culture and the fauna that is in Thailand in the presentation. It gives the idea that Molly enjoys learning about this culture and being involved in it, something that has been established in previous episodes.

In addition to this, there is a somewhat good explanation about why we haven’t seen Uncle David and Emmie around before, and that is because they live in New York and they haven’t been able to visit the Mcgees in a while.

The scene that follows is Uncle David and Emmie arriving at the Mcgees house. Molly greets them both and they get to meet Scratch, who they are very happy to see him and give him a big hug. Uncle David gives Molly an elephant plushie as a gift and she thanks to him in Thai. This makes Emmie excited since she thinks she has someone else around her age to talk to in Thai, to which Molly sadly answers that she only knows a few words and not much else. Emmie apologizes and shows to be okay with Molly not knowing a lot about the language.

Then Sharon and Grandma Nin greet David and Emmie in thai too, a conversation that Molly isn't able to follow since she can’t understand them. This is the first thing that makes Molly feel alienated from the rest of the Suksais, expressing to Scratch that she didn’t know there was so much thai spoken in this side of the family.

In the next scene the family is seen looking for a game night to play, Emmie suggests playing makruk, which Sharon describes as ¨thai chess¨. This is a game Molly has never heard about. Darryl reveals that he has been playing makruk online lately and plays a game with Emmie, making Molly feel more insecure about not knowing a lot about thai culture.

Then Uncle David shows some seaweed snacks that he brought to share. Molly tries eating some of them only to quickly realize that they are too spicy for her and she isn’t used to eating food that is this spicy. Sharon, David and Emmie eat them without any problem since they have spicy tolerance thanks to the thai food they got used to growing up.

Molly and Scratch are trying to calm down their burning mouths from the spiciness by drinking bottles of milk in Molly’s bedroom. Molly then expresses feeling alienated from thai culture because she doesn’t know things like how speak the language nor play makruk. She talks about how she only has one thai parent (Sharon) while her cousin Emmie has two thai parents, and, she thinks that because she is mixed race, she ¨isn’t thai enough¨ for her family.

One thing that is good about this episode is that a person can relate to Molly’s conflict without them having to be Thai since her conflict is about feeling like she doesn’t fit in with the rest of the Suksais because she doesn’t know much about her heritage aside from a few things. It is about feeling insecure that you aren’t connected enough to your roots and culture and feeling disconnected to your social circle as result of that. What’s more, this idea of feeling left out is something that Molly has struggled with past episodes (A Period Piece- All Night Plight), something that in part comes from being a teen but also a product of some abandoment issues she has.

Another aspect that is cool is how the Suksais don’t put Molly down for not knowing enough about thai culture, like Grandma Nin doesn’t show to be disappointed when Molly only knows a few thai words and Emmie apologizes to Molly when she realizes this too and continues to talk in english to her. They only make one or two jokes about Molly not being able to tolerate very spicy food but nothing else. If anything, them making Molly feel left out is indirect and completely unintentional as it would be in this type of family situations.

Molly has the idea of spending all night trying to learn as much as she can about thai culture to feel like she is ¨thai enough¨. The music song sequence has her trying to learn Thai language, how top lay makruk and trying to develop some spicy tolerance while Scratch helps her. I want to highlight how supportive Scratch is of Molly in this episode, he is seen guiding her when she is giving her school presentation at the start and then staying all night helping her with learning more about thai culture. In part it is because he gets what Molly is going through but he just really cares about her.

In the next day Molly presents to her family all the thai related plates she prepared for them to have, the Suksais are shown to be impressed, seeing this as a very nice gesture from Molly. Molly mentions how the food is ¨super spicy¨ and Grandma Nin quickly notices that something is off and brings up how Molly doesn’t like spicy food. Molly ignores Nin’s commentary and tries her best to prove that she can tolerate the spicy flavor.

She asks to Uncle David and Emmie how was their trip in thai and asks them to answer her in thai too. This leads to the rest of the Suksais to have a conversation in thai that Molly isn’t able to follow again just like the beginning of the episode.

I really like how this scene really shows how overwhelmed Molly feels about not being able to understand what the rest of the family is talking about, with the subtitles covering the entire screen while Molly panicks more and more until she screams. It’s a pretty effective scene that shows how she stressed she is in this situation.

Pete decides to tell a joke in thai language, making the others laugh. Molly is suprised that even Pete (who is Irish-white) knows how to talk thai. Pete explains to her that it is a joke that he has been practicing for months to impress Grandma Nin. This leads to Molly say that she still ¨isn’t thai enough¨ even when she spend all night trying to learn about the culture.

In the following scene Molly is in her bedroom surrounded by her plushies, feeling bad about what happened earlier. Scratch tries cheering her up without being able to do so. That’s when Sharon comes in and asks to Molly what is happening. She explains to Sharon how she doesn’t feel as thai as the rest of them. What follows is the rest of the suksais telling Molly that understand how she feels, just in different ways: Sharon feels bad about letting her thai get rusty, Uncle David for not have been in Thailand and even Grandma Nin mentions how her sister made fun of her for ¨being too american¨.

Sharon explains to Molly that ¨being thai is part of you¨ and ¨there isn’t a right or wrong way to be you¨, leading to Molly to understand that she doesn’t have to prove anything to them and it is her decision to choose how she celebrates thai culture and how much she wants to learn about it. Emmie tells to Molly that they love her the way she is and they all share a family hug, ending the episode.

One detail i want to highlight i how only the Suksais are involved in this personal scene and Scratch and Pete are ¨set aside¨ since it isn’t something that involves them in this context. It is a pretty nice detail that makes the scene better than it is.

Conclusion:

The lesson that 100% Molly Mcgee gives is that people have different ways of celebrating their own culture and they don’t have to prove anything to anyone. It is one’s decision to want to learn more about one’s heritage and you don’t have to do it because you feel like you have to impress your family or other people. One decides how invested they want to be and there isn’t anything wrong with knowing less about it in contrast to the rest of your family and social circle.

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