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Town & Country: What Happened in the Interior Chinatown Finale?

Re Interior Chinatown, one more Chloe Bennet piece from Variety:

How neat that they can rail against "Hulu". Perfect clips for if/when Hulu announces there won't be a second season. Hey, Lana made it to the rooftop in Neighborhood Rumble! I think in an earlier episode, Karl said he could never reach the rooftop. And then of course Willis has to make it to the rooftop of the SRO. OMG, a lion dance! Love it. I like the little detail that HBWC actually runs multiple TV channels in the city. At Green's press conference she spoke into the various news outlet's mics. Obviously HBWC 9 was reprsented, but so was another. And now we see two different reporters for two different HBWC channels reporting on the scene at Golden Palace. Ahhhhhhhhh, I thought back earlier in the ep when she said "why is this so hard", it was clear it would be easier with a second player teaming up. And then that's exactly what Willis said! Gotta be honest, when Johnny in the machine (or whoever) started typing "D", I was not expecting "die". And wait, now Willis and Lana are employed at a TV network? Man, I hope they get a second season.

I'm really intrigued with the gentrification storyline, which is both relevant and also I think it's being used as a metaphor for racial representation in media too. Meanwhile, the powers that be may have fucked up by casting a woman and a Black man to replace Carey and McDonough, because neither is fully a part of white patriarchy and thus aren't going to be as complicit in the cover up this time. (They were presumably naive pawns when first cast on the show.) It's good to see Johnny didn't kill (or even shoot) McDonough. Has Johnny been trapped in the videogame all this time??? It's implied that's where the Chinatown murder victims go, and I think McDonough's time away was also spent inside the game. Is this a Tron situation????

So, I've never seen the stage show, or even listened to any of the songs before this besides "Defying Gravity", or read the book. So I'm going in ignorant. But to me, the plight of the animals in Oz felt only lightly sketched in, and the enemies-to-friends arc for Elpheba and Glinda felt a little too long and yet just had an abrupt turn at the Ozdust. And what was Fiyero about? Maybe he plays a bigger role later? If this was a standalone movie, I'd say all his scenes were filler. And the hardest thing about balancing it all is that you have to believe the Wizard is a bad guy to cheer for Elpheba (check) and yet that Glinda's face turn is real but she's not bad herself for siding with the Wizard (... only 50% successful here for my money). Honestly, I don't think I could thread that needle any better, but it was still overall fairly unsatisfying as a movie... But with a killer ending. So "Defying Gravity" was great but if it makes sense, it paid off more than the rest of the movie adequately set up.

I was not expecting a musical number. Wow. Also, the meta layers are multiplying as Willis is a detective so famous he's shooting ads and thus playing himself on video. "lost my scent" but I feel like it could also be "lost my 'ccent" as in "accent". But I also love how that deodorant ad recapped most of his arc on the show so far, from delivery guy to tech guy to detective. Josh is kinda hilarious in an off-putting, "the bad guy has secretly taken a post as an underling for reasons" sort of way. Everything he says is just off somehow, like he's midway through brainwashing Willis. I've been wondering about what Lily's story would lead to. Renting a Chinatown SRO to a non-Chinese couple did hint at gentrification, and now she's staging a home outside of Chinatown and being told to turn down the Chinese-ness: "They're very … specific." OK, the watch ad is where I'm starting to think this is an extended dream sequence, because it's so very weird. I guess the whole show has been weird, but still. But then again, Lily really was calling him, so that's a plot thread happening outside his sphere, which argue against this whole "ad guy" thing being a dream sequence. BTW, I looked up "Vermeidung", and it's German for "avoidance", which certainly seems fitting considering he's been avoiding calls from his mom, and also this detective job that was supposedly another step towards finding his brother has been just a series of distractions from it instead. (I guess "Deep Water" was similarly named to hint at Johnny's boat sinking? Oof, that's dark.) Lily's arc reminds me of what's happening to real Chinatowns all over North America, which are hollowing out their traditional population as new Chinese immigrants tend to move to "ethnoburbs" and richer, generally non-Chinese people gentrify the downtown or downtown-adjacent Chinatowns. Aw, Fatty! I missed him last episode. In reading articles about this show, I came across one take that said the takes on Chinese American and Asian American roles in society in the book -- just published a few years ago -- were slightly outdated in a post Shang-Chi, post-Crazy Rich Asians world. But I dunno, the Chinese chili crisp business Fatty is running is very of the moment. (Related, I remember a while back one person saying sriracha was one thing, but non-Asians would never gravitate to chili crisp. (And they liked chili crisp! It wasn't a diss on the food but a take on the limits of adventurousness in non-Asian people) but now brands like Lao Gan Ma and Fly by Jing are where Huy Fong's sriracha was a decade ago.) And Willis saying that Fatty basically took a standard chili crisp recipe and packaged it for white people is of course a synecdoche for any kind of packaging minoritized cultures for the mainstream, but also specifically chili crisp is a very current reference. When Anna visited Willis at his fancy downtown apartment, note how she didn't take off her shoes upon entry. This is a key thing in Chinese culture, and it's been shown several times that happens reflexively in Chinatown. But of course, Willis is living in a big fancy downtown apartment now, not a Chinatown SRO. Well, a big fancy apartment with dream-like architecture that connects directly back to his mom's SRO. BTW, don't miss out on the post-credits scene.

I was not expecting Lana from 12 years ago to look exactly the same. Is she older than she seems, or is this cause it's fiction and TV shows play fast and loose with timelines and aging? See also when the police chief conspiciously avoided actually naming what year it was 12 years ago. (On the other hand, Det Carey and/or the actor got a bit of aging makeup.) Oh nice, a new title sequence for the show within a show! What show are they referencing this time? Gotta be some basic cable cop show, right?* Also, what's with the lighting change? Now instead of cold blue, it's warm yellow. Is that specifically Burn Notice? I actually am really enjoying all the basic police procedural stuff that happened in this episode. Turner and Wu chasing down former Det Carey, Green and Lee finding the bar owner and chasing him down too, and smaller stuff like noticing the cannoli bakery or the biker bar matchbooks. LMAO at Turner just handing his badge over to Willis and somehow that actually makes Willis a real detective for the purposes of the inner show. * edit: the Reddit discussion thread said it's True Detective. Which is very fitting considering the episode title. Sorry, I've never watched True Detective.

Has Uncle been human trafficking/underground railroading people out of bad fiction? It would explain why the nail salon girl wasn't actually dead. But then again, why would she have come back to Chinatown? Haha, look at Karl with his cutting insight! He shoulda been a mean waiter long ago! (BTW, I said earlier that I thought Fatty was a cook, but I guess he was a busser? What was Karl before he got bumped up to busser?) Nice, I didn't expect Former Tech Guy to show up again. I'm also fascinated about the literal glitching going on. What layer of unreality is this? Also, LMAO that they caught Uncle and Willis at the docks and don't even recognize Willis as the new translator. I hope we get an explanation of how Lana "broke the rules" by solving the case of the week almost before it even got started.

Five episodes in, I'm really starting to miss having a full title or opening sequence. The ultra-minimalist title card is just not enough for me. The tunnels under Chinatown were so weird and spooky. Does this show end with Willis meeting author Charles Yu? (I haven't read the book, so I'm just speculating.) I think that's what's going on with him. In a way, it reminds me of what Matrix Reloaded said about earlier versions of the Matrix: the first version was a (fictional/computer-generated/virtual) utopia and people rejected it wholesale because it was too good. Seems like that might be happening to Turner. His life works out so well all the time. The actual plot line of Willis and Lana wanting to break into Uncle's office felt really rushed. And yet they had time for a random Audrey cameo. I hope that pays off later, but right now the Audrey situation feels like just a weird complication that doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Kung Fu Guy (Willis' brother) has his flashback scenes in 4:3! (Meanwhile, the show itself is in 16:9 and that weird club scene a few episodes ago that felt like a commercial was in Cinemascope or something.) The Crab Rangoon joke was funny, but doesn't make a lot of sense. It's super inauthentic Chinese food and I could see why Fatty has never heard of it, except he was a cook (?) before having to move into being a waiter, so surely he would have known everything on the menu. I'm also thrown by the phone doing a busy signal when it should be a dial tone. Intentional mistake? The thing about a show so weird is that you can never fully believe anything was an actual mistake. (... but the PC in the Tech Guy room misspelling "permanently" is probably a genuine mistake.) Also, the show kinda snuck it in, but while the computers on the main bullpen of the police precinct are old green monochrome CRTs, Tech Guy's office has a 16:9 flatscreen or two. ... and now Willis and Lana are full on doing video editing! This show is so meta. Video editing of the show that preceded "Black & White", to be precise. And ho boy, KFG was a 100% Bruce Lee homage. Love it. I'm completely at a loss to figure out what was going on with the brother. Was he set up? Was he actually evil? (I mean, I think he probably wasn't.) But it's so hard to square him being seemingly actually ignorant of who the Painted Faces were and then he was also their boss as well? Bonkers.

I'm actually really enjoying Det Green doing the Lenny Brisco zingers. Fatty's rant hurt me just a little. I'm CBC and I actually do like orange chicken. And I love cold water. I developed a habit of always ordering ice water at Chinese restaurants, because they never provided it without asking. And then one time I visited Shanghai and I found the water dispenser in the airport offered your choice of either hot water or... warm water. Cause Chinese people mostly don't like cold water! But I've picked up some Canadian ways. The way Willis gradually broke in to the records room felt almost like a video game. Or a contantly rewinding day/day-looping movie, where the protagonist fails, fixes their failure the next time around, and thus slowly advances towards their goal. I also had been wondering about the money shortfall from how much food Willis was stealing, but Audrey's "charge the customers more for less food" was a pretty solid solution. I couldn't quite make out all the old job ID cards Lana had in her desk. There was some "Kra Maga" one, a veterinary hospital one, and a cargo pilot one. The rules of this reality are nuts. Aw man, Willis just totally took over for the old tech guy! And now tech guy can't get back in to the precinct! So "Tech Guy" got recast somehow??? Again, the rules are nuts.

If your ex’s new gf has a mildly (?) famous podcast with her sister, you’ll probably find out about the sister in the course of online stalking the new gf.

It’s been ten years since the first episode! Vulture hosted a reunion panel and the cast would do a reunion movie if FX is game. Transcript here: https://www.vulture.com/article/youre-the-worst-cast-and-creator-are-ready-for-a-movie.html Also, creator Stephen Falk says the series finale wasn’t originally intended to be a series finale, just a season finale: If I remember correctly, FX announced the renewal for season 5 as the final season though?

I liked in the scene outside the precinct when Willis is a weird extra in the scene, esp when a dude with a beanie walked by him going screen left, and then the very next shot had the same dude walking from screen right again, and then soon after that he walks by Willis again. It would have been less noticeable without the beanie, and in any case any competent show has extra wranglers to make sure continuity errors like that don't happen, but I guess Interior Chinatown wants to highlight how unreal (the show-within-the-show) Black & White is. (also the color grading changes too when the show gets taken over by Black & White.) Lana's "I had other jobs before this" is bending my mind. Does she know she's an actor in a show? I'm sorry, I've never liked the extreme kitschiness of LA's Chinatown Central Plaza, but at least here it's playing (a) Chinatown. I feel like some other shows from less enlightened times have used it to stand in for actual China. I'd also love to hear the creative team's thoughts on why some of the Chinese is Mandarin and some of it Cantonese.

Chloe Bennet briefly talks about being mixed and her career at 5:23: "I think the theme of being "racially ambiguous,but white enough for people to be comfortable with" is something that I very much have been used as. You know, I've been a pawn for that for most of my career and I think in a lot of ways in my life."