Roundup

[jaggedwolf]

This week's roundup is brought to you by me wondering whether the reason I watched all of Queer As Folk and couldn't get through more than three episodes of The L Word is that QaF had a main character that was a complete nerd, and afaik, the latter didn't. (He ends up buying and running a comic book shop.)

Critical Role

The last two episodes have been pretty intense, especially for Beauregard. I've already posted my thoughts on her offer in the latest episode.

I didn't expect this sudden swerve back into Beau's backstory (nor did Beau herself, I think), but it's been very vindicating on several points. That Beau has been understating, not overstating, how badly her parents treated her. That the rest of the Nein will have her back in their own ways - Caleb and Nott repeatedly stating how accomplished Beau is, Jester and Fjord talking to Beau privately at different points, Yasha with those last words to Thoreau - that they say they'll follow Beau's lead in there, and they do so. That Beau's father excels at keeping his cool, at sounding so rational and collected while Beau is visibly losing it at even being back home. This last bit is particularly vindicating for me, given how I depicted Beau's dad in to restrain yourself is to already lose. He's an asshole in the way I predicted! Terrible and wonderful. (Extra terrible and wonderful: Beau asking her mom if she was already pregnant with TJ when she sent Beau away, and her mom not answering.)

I also love how warm Beau is with little TJ, and how she's not resentful she is of him. It's very sweet, and I'm glad he seemed more curious than wary of her.

Theatre

I watched the Frozen musical, and Hamlet. Very different moods.

Frozen was good fun, and I feel like they managed to somehow emphasize the sister stuff even more than the movie did, though I haven't seen the movie since it first came out - the younger versions of them were adorable, for one thing, and the two of them as adults were perfect.

Obviously it's hard to pull off the ice visuals that the movie did, but they did a really great job with the ice sound effects. The dress change in Let It Go made everyone in the theatre lose their shit. The little kids in the audience went "ewwww" when Anna and Hans kissed. The new song for Anna and Kristoff was cute, but those two were kind of awkward/stilted at the end.

I may have idly daydreamed about Kristoff as a big mountain woman instead, but I'm just Like That.

Hamlet was very good, and very intense, especially physicality-wise (am I talking about the character, actor or the play? yes.) I continue to think the most baller moment is when Gertrude knowingly drinks the poison.

Television

The Good Place

So, that finale happened.

I knew I'd be pretty meh on the finale, given my general "fuck death/nonexistence" attitude, but I was very pleasantly surprised, that after a season of not having very much to do Tahani chose the path that she did. Screw the door, there's almost more to want, more to do, more to be, really, and I'm glad that held true for at least one of the mains. I had a brief moment where I went "wait, did Kamilah also die before their parents did", and then remembered Kamilah had a breakthrough while alive, so it's very possible their parents took longer to get through the tests. The parents were dicks, but still, having both your kids die before you do is depressing as hell.

I also continue to think it's super weird that the main problem hampering the Good Place when they finally showed was uh, mushy brains, and not the horror of knowing almost everyone you loved is off in the Bad Place getting tortured and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. It's a jarring absence in a show ostensibly about how morality and community go hand-in-hand together, that we become good because we love other people. It got close in early S4, when Brent asks "how can this be the good place, when my friends aren't here with me?", and then never came up again.

Writing

Yet another TSCOSI ficlet dump on tumblr.

Links

The Secret Life of Sven - As soon as Sven appeared on stage I had so many questions and this article answered most of them.