Mikay

*Dusts off account to speak about a Bridgerton-inspired period piece. 🥰 Honestly, I’m not sure how closely the show will follow the previous versions. Either way, I think we’re supposed to believe that Guy had a conversation with her in New York and there was an instant spark. Then his mother died and he had his money concerns, and he wanted to marry Nan because he liked her and she had money. But then she told him she was illegitimate and he had to consider the scandal and that she might not inherit. He decided his feelings were strong enough and went to propose, but it was too late. Having written all that out, I’m not sure I really feel or understand how or why Guy is so deeply in love with Nan. The same goes for Theo tbh. He’s a nice guy, but when he confesses his love for Nan, I’m like—-not sure I really buy this connection? The central romances happened so fast without any build up, and I’m not sure I feel the smoldering chemistry needed to sell me on either couple. Speaking of a show that’s clearly an influence, Bridgerton tends to really drag out a couple coming together, so by the time they do it feels a little more earned. Though this show clearly has things other than romance on its mind like female friendships, complex marriages, societal restrictions on women. I think those elements are much stronger.

I found this episode to be devastating to watch. I’d argue that we learn a lot about George from this hour of television. The show seemed to suggest that he’s had health/mental health issues for his whole life, and that he’s internalized the idea that his issues reflect poorly on the nation. That’s a lot of pressure. He’s willing to accept horrendous, but largely accurate for the time mental health treatment, to be worthy of Charlotte and be worthy of his position as king. He wants to get better and yet the treatment for mental health issues is basically just psychological and physical torture. As someone with my own mental health issues, I could really relate to that feeling of not being good enough or stable enough for relationships, work or even life. Being mentally ill can be very alienating. Though obviously we’ve come a long way from openly terrorizing patients.

One of the bullies mentions them knowing each other in grade school. So I took that to mean there had been some overlap on the middle and elementary level. I think we are supposed to surmise that Jordan has been bullied for years. That’s pretty tough for a kid. This episode crystallized a lot of his difficulties for me and because of that I had some questions about Clark and Lois’s parenting for other reasons than listed here. Clearly, they are overestimating Jonathan’s capability to cope with the massive changes to his life that are happening at a rapid clip, but also despite their attempt to support Jordan, they are potentially going about that in the wrong way too? Like would you let your emotionally fragile, super-powered teen son confront his childhood bullies knowing he doesn’t know how to control his powers at all? That's seems like an obvious recipe for trouble. The show sort of established reasons for their decisions, Jordan’s abilities are inconsistent and holo-Jor-El said a few episodes ago that his powers would be weak, but with the bullying and his own previous mental health struggles like anxiety, it feels like Clark and Lois have been under scrutinizing his adjustment to having powers. Controlling emotions as a teen is always a struggle, but when you have a history of anxiety and panic attacks there’s obviously an extra burden. Not necessarily your typical teen angst. Add in the impact of long term bullying, and more recently laser eye beams that respond to your feelings, that’s a lot going on. All of this culminated in one of the stranger parts of the episode. The fact that Jordan could have killed or at least greatly hurt another kid being almost forgotten in the shuffle. He had such little control over his emotions that he could have hurt someone in a permanent way. And it adds into what I said before. Jordan has a lot going on, and his powers are mixing in with a lot of issues he’s had for awhile. Hopefully, there will be significantly more training for him and a greater focus on control because Granpappy Jor-El is completely full of crap.

I meant more that Georgia was in such close proximity to them/had barely left the room and he was immediately aggressive and suspiciously handsy with Ginny. He doesn't even check to make sure that Georgia went upstairs or anything. It struck me as almost too aggressive and bold to be a first time thing with him, but only the writers know I guess! The scene was very uncomfortable to watch. This show in general has a lot of moment to moment tonal whiplash. I suppose that makes it unique?

On rewatch, I wondered about the yoga groping incident. It’s mentioned in episode 1 that Ginny never liked Kenny. Initially, I thought that was just garden variety teen dislike of a new stepparent/her mother's fast moving dating life, but could the reason that she doesn’t like him be because he was handsy creep all along? Was the yoga situation the first time or part of a pattern of him making her uncomfortable? There’s something kind of bold about him assaulting her with her mother there in the next room that made me feel he'd tried something before. Many predators start small. Perhaps the yoga incident was just the first time Georgia is there to witness his behavior. And also to your other point---I think kids don’t always fully understand when adults are crossing lines/or what to do if they do. Ginny may not have internally recognized that he was sexually harassing her and so didn't make the connection between his actions and Georgia killing him. I didn't get the impression during the season that Ginny had spoken with her mother about the incident/or other incidents. In fact, the one flashback scene where we see their life with Kenny, Georgia is chiding Ginny for not accepting him as family.

I went back and forth on Ginny. Sometimes her snark was too much, but I think the show does a good job of suggesting that her internal problems aren't just garden variety teen angst. Her biracial identity is a source of confusion and uneasiness to her. Though she keeps in contact with her father, she's often the only visibly black member of her family and one of the few black people at her school. Her mother's lifestyle where the family has to move from place to place abruptly has also robbed Ginny of a consistent source of stability. There are other hints that Ginny really struggles to connect to others, which I think leaves her overly forgiving of her sometimes toxic friend group. All those factors have turned her into someone that self-harms as a way to distract or seek release from uncomfortable or painful emotions. She does it all throughout the season. This coping mechanism, wherein a real problem is dealt with by avoidance or distraction is something that Georgia does too. Of course Georgia doesn't do the physical act of self-harm, but she does prefer to avoid talking about difficult and thorny things and tries to paper over and get past problems without unpacking them in a significant way. Georgia is doing this to protect her children in the best way she knows, but Ginny is burning herself with a lighter and Austin is stabbing other children. Those are not signs of stable, healthy people. Something has gone wrong. Even though Ginny latches onto the grandparents issue, I think that is a proxy for what she feels is the murky fog that surrounds her life and all the things that she can't talk about with her mother because even though her family is close on the surface, there are a lot of secrets. I think leaving on a motorcycle with her young brother is truly terrible decision-making. Rather than confronting her mother with a conversation, or getting some details directly from her father immediately over the phone, she just takes off in the middle of the night(this did seem like a total Georgia move too). There's not even an attempt to deal with her feelings of betrayal and confusion in a healthy way. But maybe she just doesn't know how.

I’m glad! As someone nearish to the age group of the characters I feel like I’m living with a lot of the anxiety about the modern workplace/life, which is very tumultuous these days. It’s like the bigness of 1980s backlit with the economic downturn and general upheaval of the 30s. Just basic survival is now the goal. I think Gus and Yazmine(I've been spelling her name wrong this entire time!) are in a different place than the rest of the characters for much of the season. Their wealth provides a cushion to what would otherwise be big earth shattering events to the others like RIF, and so while they are at turns deeply upset by their neglect(Gus), and rightfully bristling at a hostile work environment(Yasmin),there isn’t that same desperation/without this I am nothing mentality that define Harper, Robert and Hari. It’s curious to consider what Yazmine will do next season if/when her finances are challenged by her parents divorce. She’s shown to be a very Type A person, someone who reacts to setbacks by grasping for more control in other areas of her life. Not having her usual resources may translate to her being a harder more calculating worker less likely to take abuse from her superiors. I mean as grim as it sounds, the fact that Yazmine ultimately didn’t report on the toxicity/harassment from Kenny/others on her team might make that team more willing to have her back/include her in actual assignments. Though the idea that you would have to betray your morals to be part of the team really emphasizes the toxicity of the workplace. I agree that Yazmine is a bit difficult to trust. She both seems like one of the nicest characters on the show, but also someone whose motives are hard to read. Her desire to set Harper up with Greg(seemingly unprompted), going so far as to plan a dinner for the two of them, is really weird(as commented on by her bf). Harper just moved in, they've bonded, but probably not to the level where she should be setting up dates on her behalf. It seems like she just has a lot of control issues and tries to manage people around her to satisfy some internal need. I also found Yazmine posture toward Harper and Rob a little strange. She's shown to be jealous of Harper and Rob's relationship a few times in the show, but since Robert was obviously interested in her, it comes off as her being controlling for controlling's sake. Like when she interrupted the Harper&Rob hookup in episode 7(out of jealousy?), even though Rob wasn't playing hard to get and had made his interest in her known several times. And then even in episode 8, she shows almost no interest in Rob at all..so was it just the chase, the desire to control? Despite some of that weirdness, I did think there were surprising moments of emotional tenderness with Harper. That moment when she crawls into bed with Harper rather than sleeping on the couch. I think she was being pretty sincere there. Interested to see where it all goes in season 2.

I will sit at a table for one and say that I liked the show! I actually think there are relatively few shows out there right now that really capture the desperation of the millennial/Gen Z generations trying to make it in a world with an uncertain job market, rapid technology change, and the increase of the price of living more generally(I know that I for example will probably never own a house and neither will anyone I know who is my age). We are now in a space, where you could go to college, graduate and still be unemployed or dirt poor. You need the something extra to be successful in this day and age—desperation and ambition. Maybe that’s why the drug use didn’t bother me, and I actually did think they were showing something new and deeply sad. In the 60s, people took drugs because it was fun. Today’s working people(according to the show) don’t just take drugs to unwind or look edgy, though that was part of it, they also take drugs to keep going at their daily lives. To handle the insane pressure of their jobs, which requires long hours and meeting their supervisors' every capricious whim. Rob had serious drug problems, but it wasn’t just his own problems driving him in the addict direction. His use of drugs was also obliquely encouraged by supervisors to allow him to bond with clients. Meanwhile a few of the people above the new grads on the ladder are also shown with serious drug problems(Greg, Clement), or to be off in some way(Eric). No one seems happy or fulfilled at the top, and yet it’s the only place these people want to be because if you aren’t at the top, then you are at the bottom. That’s where we are now. I also thought the motives of the characters became pretty clear by the end, particularly Harper. While at first glance she seems stoic and put together, I think you get a hint of her problems early when she has a full on break down at the thought of admitting to a simple mistake. She’s a deeply insecure and anxious person that has trouble connecting with others. Most of this seems to be because of the loss of her brother, who clearly played a major role in her life as an emotional touchstone. Her mother is quite unable to handle her emotional outburst in their one phone call this season, so I don’t get the impression of a close household. Without her brother, the only thing left for her is her job. It’s why she reacts possessively to her friendships and mentorships, viewing threats to them as threats to her own security. When Yasmin puts the moves on Rob, Harper can constantly be seen glaring at them. When Yasmin tries to nudge in her space at CPS, she reacts with jealousy and agitation. She ultimately chooses Eric, because Eric, even though he’s an extremely toxic boss, saw her. Not just as a brochure charity case, but as a poor American minority, with the deep hunger to succeed that would make her the most cutthroat person in the room. She was his person. No one else at the company offered her that level security(and money), so when it came down to it, she chose him over Daria and Sara, who couldn’t guarantee her anything. They say they want to change the culture, but the first thing they did when under the influence of alcohol Harper confessed to being afraid of Eric, is corner her about the accusation and foist a NDA on her that she didn’t even have time to even read. All things being square, she looked at her options and picked the safest one. It definitely made me love the character. So often black women on tv shows are self-sacrificing, willing to throw themselves on the frontlines for the “greater good,” which conveniently is often the happiness of others. You can actually tell this isn’t a CW show because the black female character is allowed to be complicated, flawed and sympathetic. I did just watch a show that could definitely have been on CW though because they sidelined the black female lead and made her everyone else’s champion. Harper isn’t like that, which made me smile. The show isn’t perfect, but I will definitely watch a season 2.

To me the 70 years, not to mention what I believe is like her five thousand year lifespan made it a deeply unconvincing subplot. It’s true that male heroes are often obsessed with their first love. But those characters aren’t immortal, and their pining makes more sense because it’s happening over like a few years rather than multiple decades. Like Steve R. missing Peggy and maybe never fully moving on didn’t bother me. He woke up shell-shocked in the present, it wasn’t as if several decades passed with him holding a torch for this one person. Peter Parker? He was a teen/in his early twenties, longing for the affection of a friend. Once again, it wasn’t as if long decades had passed. Also, importantly for both, and really any male heroes, they are allowed to have other bonds. They have friends/allies/mentors, they have villains, and they have conflicts that are not solely based around their love interest. I believe that’s because their stories are ultimately about them, while I’m not sure that this film was really about Wonder Woman. I didn’t hate WW84. It entertained me. Chris and Gal have a lovely warm chemistry, even if I think bringing him back in the direct sequel to the film where he gave a moving sacrifice sort of retroactively cheapens that moment. Pedro and Kristen Wiig had good moments as villains, though not enough screen time or focus to clarify their motives and ramp up enmity with Diana. The few fight scenes were thrilling, particularly the obstacle course at the beginning. But to me what was missing was Wonder Woman. Even liking Steve as much as I do, I couldn’t help but feel that Wonder Woman, the character who in the comics(and in the first movie) is intimately connected to Greek mythology, has her own stable of allies and villains that are linked to her, had been diminished to this character whose whole story revolves around her love of one man. It’s to such an extreme that he’s still the only long-standing connection she has with anyone in the film, given the death of friends from WWI like Etta Candy years earlier and the souring of her burgeoning bond with Barbara. Where is her supporting cast? The 70 year pining maybe wouldn’t have bothered me if it didn’t feel like it was the only thing there was for her.

I don't disagree with anything you've said here. The short-term solution of violence to solve a problem is just that a short-term solution that leaves the larger systematic forces that shape toxic behavior like sexual harassment in place. To begin fixing said problem not just for this individual guy, but on a societal level would require bigger and more nuanced actions. But I want to add on to this something else that I feel is similarly unexplored, which is the psychological impact of living in the world as a woman where sexual harassment and assault are constant threats. Where assault or harassment can be reconfigured to be the result of your choices as a woman(what you were wearing, what you were drinking, where you were walking) and not the abuser's own monstrous conduct. The drunk harasser stopped by a beating may stew in long-held feelings of powerlessness and emasculation, but what are the long term consequences to the women that he's victimizing? How does that constant helplessness, embarrassment and fear psychologically shape women? That was a thought I had when Barbara after subduing her tormentor continued to deliver deadly blows. There were in-story reasons why she couldn't stop(declining humanity as a consequence for her glammed-up look and confidence), but it did make me think briefly about real-world psychology and radicalization. Barbara had probably been putting up with men like nameless drunk guy forever, and now having powers similar to that of Demi-god Diana, she was finally in a position to do something about it. I took the drunk guy almost as a stand-in for many others, which led to extreme overkill. None of that justifies her attempted murder, but it was something that I thought about while watching.

This was something I also struggled to engage with. Wiig may lack the literal model looks of Gal Gadot, but she's still a thin white woman with blonde hair, an image often held up as the ideal. The movie tried to convey that she was frumpy with that same tired Hollywood trick of slapping some glasses on her, but it felt a little pat to me. You see the glasses to no glasses transition all the time in shows and movies. Wonder Woman at least has the excuse of homaging the 80s, but I feel like in 2020 it's time for Hollywood to accept that some women wear glasses and just get over it. A flashback here would have gotten her plight across in a better way for me. Because while I had some sympathy, her increasing monstrousness, explained in a single line of dialogue, tossed out in the middle of a battle scene, left everything feeling a bit undercooked. There was one scene though with Cheetah that did really registered with me---the compare and contrast with mousy Barbara getting harassed by a drunk man, and then later on vamped Barbara being able to defend herself(even though she takes it too far). There have been a thousand times when I wished I had someway to remove aggressive suitors from my presence. I'm talking about people that will not take no for an answer, who become offended at a lack of interest, and who I've sometimes worried would follow me home or hurt me. Even just the knowledge that if things came to blows or if I felt unsafe, I'd be able to defend myself would be a balm. I'm not sure if the film could have really gone into that angle without becoming grim, but I did think it was interesting. That type of fear that many woman experience is something that Wonder Woman with her super strength and speed doesn't have to worry about.

I found this to be a pretty solid episode. Some things are gelling a bit more to me, and I think tonight the decision to make the Elders human witches finally paid off. I interpreted Harry's plot to be that the creation of whitelighters, purely good, but also totally subservient to the agendas of the Elders and witches as a whole, required the Elders to remove their darkness and wipe their memories. The first whitelighter was created in 1693 so around the Witch Trials. Perhaps after seeing humans turn on human women, some of whom might have been witches, they wanted a guarantee. The process clearly underwent a bit of trial and error because the first whitelighter can barely speak and her double is completely unhinged. That's quite the original sin. Evil!Harry is clearly evil, but he seems far more high functioning than the woman at the insane asylum. Also I agree with this:. Evil!Harry is the person the sisters have termed the "assassin" and he's capturing powerful magical beings, which seem to include the Charmed Ones and Abigail. The sisters initially thought he was part of the demon campaign to murder witches, but he seems to be an equal opportunity attacker with no ties to the war brewing between demon and witch. I wonder if his motives will instead tie more into the how whitelighters were created? The original whitelighter in the insane asylum said that she was a half and seemed distressed. Perhaps, Harry doesn't feel this loss because the Elders wiped his memories? Maybe his darkside counterpart does feel that half-ness and is trying to do something to remedy the problem. This also echoes my thoughts: The Elders and whitelighters protected the magical world of witches and magical creatures. In the past if there was trouble, the elders could organize and dispatch witches or whitelighters to help. With them totally out of the picture and the magical world reeling from their absence, it's the perfect time for someone like Abigail or any other ambitious demon to try to unite the demon world and wage war on the witches who they blame for their oppression. Abigail seems to be emboldening the demons using an ancient prophecy about the Overlord as a smokescreen since she is the wrong gender to command respect in the misogynistic demon world. Based on what we've seen so far, she is in way over her head. She needed the help of the Charmed Ones to take out the demon guy that doubted her publicly and Evil!Harry has her in his sights. She's also not operating on the best intel as she murdered the witches in Vermont with the venom she was shot with out of spite and misplaced blame for the death of her demon friends. Moving on from plot stuff, I thought there were some good emotional beats in this episode for all the sisters. Mel continues to climb the ranks in my eyes, which is crazy as she was a character I changed my mind about every episode last season. Her bitterness at going from one of the most powerful people in the world to someone so weak that she must now depend on a few potions she's managed to scrape together out of desperation resonated with me. I liked Maggie's plotline this episode too and how it tied her strengths as a person into her slowly getting back her powers. There was less for Macy, but her finding common ground with Abigail through their shared demonic background is a good follow-up to her loneliness and desire to belong.

Oh show, what am I going to do with you. I was left more bewildered by this episode than anything. I still don't love the safe space location. Though I do have a guess about why Elders Central is stationed there that is solely informed by my familiarity with supernatural shows as a medium. In the first episode, Macy viewed a plaque on the wall that mentioned that the building was built on the grounds of an insane asylum whose residents were thought to be witches tortured out of their power by the asylum staff. If I'm remembering it right, there was also a mention of a secret tunnel that they may have dug for escape? Perhaps those witches were the original elders or connected to them in someway? As far as the episode itself goes. I liked Macy's plot. It required less torturous leaps for me than some of the others, though leaps remained. Why are Macy and Maggie talking in full hearing of Abigail? I mean I guess she already knew Macy's name so their cover would eventually get blown, but...a leap nonetheless. Still, I could at least follow what was happening, Macy is desperately trying to save the magical world on her own by relying on her demon powers, but it's a lost cause. She's been hardened by the events of last season(loosing Galvin), and she's now alienated from her sisters and Harry(because his double is invading her mind with sexy dreams). In general, I feel like Macy is actually in a different show than all the other characters. And it may not be the most inspired show(demon families, demon overlord etc etc, very original charmed actually complete with the leather in place of budget, but also a pinch of Supernatural and maybe Lost Girl), but it's one that has a stakes, mystery and actual magic. I agree on the chemistry with Abigail. They had my favorite scenes of the night and I'm happy she seems to be around for at least another episode. May she be better served than Jada. Another guess based on nothing but my previous television habits, Evil!Harry is shooting witches with darts because he's looking for the overlord or his spawn. Perhaps the demon blood running through Abigail and Macy's veins, by birth or by resurrection, is the bloodline of the original overlord(or the Source by any other name)? On the flipside, Maggie is stuck in a workplace romcom(like she was stuck in a college comedy last season with double the sorority cliches) and Mel is taking acid trips with Harry in search for relevance(or for a very cheap looking maguffin), and those shows are more perplexing to me. Like when Mel's love interest talked about their special connection, I started to wonder if I'd missed something. I guess that ended up not being real, but I don't quite know what's going on there. Maggie's plot? I'd honestly rather see the girls selling magical cures on the streets of Seattle or antiques from their house for money. But no such luck. Hopefully they can be guided back to the plot any episode now.

I thought this was okay if a bit sluggish. I had to laugh at the minutes long exposition that one demon guy did defining demons, demonic history and the demonic prophecy. All of that should have been introduced in the first season as there were demons popping up all over the place and they felt rather aimless. Like what demon class is Alistair? Would he not have ruled the demons if he got access to the Source? All that complaining aside, one thing I have appreciated is that the show has at least gamed out the consequences of some of its more destructive choices. Taking out all the Elders by the hand of one not so clever demon in a single episode with almost no fanfare, still comes off as clumsy to me, but the effects of their death have clearly been felt in the Charmed world. I probably wouldn’t have been able to accept a return to the status quo after such a choice. There were good character moments this episode, particularly with Maggie and Mel. Last season I found Mel to be a somewhat grating character lost in a subplot I could barely understand and care about. But this year I’m surprised at how much I really like her. Her line about not being the B team, but the A team made me smile. Also, maybe because I was horribly burned by Parker, but I like Maggie and her new love interest? My biggest problem with the Parker romance was the super speed at which it moved, but also the fact that the actor who played Parker felt really uneven to me. I never bought much of his dialogue or his story. Macy writing down the names of the dead witches, so that she would remember them in their entirety is a nice callback to the harbinger exorcist episode where she treated Angela Wu as a statistic rather than a human. I like that her and Real!Harry relationship’s is built on the fact that they like and respect each other. He knows the favorite foods of the charmed ones, he hugs them in a certain way and he looks at them with affection. I also actually like that they don’t have their powers(for now) and aren’t MMA-level fighters with no training like last season. I mean something that made me smile this episode was the way that Mel was so excited about disappearing the apple with her cloaking potion. She’d definitely done more impressive things, but she had this happy glee at being able to do simple magic that I didn’t feel was in the first season enough. I’m hopefully that they build up their skills on screen and we get more moments like that. But don’t drag the no powers thing out too long show. Mel also had this line about recreating the book of shadows. Hopefully when it returns, it’s not just used as the Siri of spells. For the OG show, the book was this important historical heirloom passed down the bloodline. The sisters loved and grew to respect the book. I’d like to see that here too.

I’m cautiously optimistic about the direction of season 2. There are some elements of the original series that popped up in the premiere that made me smile—slimy demons in black, darklighters(??), demon flame powers, a way to protect innocent witches. In general it’s giving me an OG Charmed season 1 vibe where there was a greater sense of danger and muddling about without the oversight of elders. The move to a city also feels like it fits a bit more with the premise of the show, as well as giving them all more mobility. It was a little hard for me to buy the revolving door of magical creatures just coming to a random Michigan town with no explanation in season 1. I’m hopeful that instead of a sloppy riff on some of the original series, we can lean on some of the stronger parts of that show and update it with lessons learned in other supernatural shows in the last 15-20 years.

I liked this well enough. Some elements were clunky, in particular, I disliked the safe space location, and wish that the new love interests for Maggie and Mel were introduced somewhere else so we didn’t have to go back. As far as the new love interests go, they weren’t incredible, but they were all an immediate step up from much of the old crew, especially Parker. I could at least see that the potential was there. I also liked Macy and Harry. I thought the biggest improvement was the stakes and the atmosphere. Last season felt like the show wanted to talk about important issues(sexual harassment, race, different waves of feminism, threats toward women) and there were some standout episodes that mixed those in, but I often found the issues themselves to be poorly integrated into the show’s overall worldbuilding. Establishing straight away that witches like women are under attack, from Macy looking at a history placard recounting the institutionalization of women to rid them of their power, to witches themselves literally being hunted down by demons in what is shaping up to be a war of survival, feels like a natural way to keep the themes front and center in a plot relevant way. Unlike last season, where the themes were on the margin(exp. Angela Wu stood in for women that experienced sexual harassment and were silenced, and she showed up for like two episodes, one of those episodes was when she was in a coma!), the main characters themselves are on the run. Their lives are directly imperiled like all the people they have to protect. I was pretty curious how this premiere would play out when they set fire to the world last year by murdering the elders, having Macy become the source of prophecy, then defeating the source, and slaughtering the Sarcana in a span of a few episodes. The worldbuilding had been shaky up until then, with a slew of forgettable magical creatures flowing in and out, and the motives of the power players(Elders, Sarcana, Alastair and his demon pals, Fiona, other magical creatures) being almost impossible to follow. So a clear focus on protecting endangered witches, and presumably other magical creatures, from a command center(I actually thought of Shadowhunters, but Power Rangers works too!) does feel like an improvement to me. Also shout out to the corny humor, which survived in tact!. Witch-ness protection. I will show up for the silly puns.

I can’t speak for others but my growing frustration that has graduated to outright loathing of Serena is more complicated than just disliking her as a character. My struggle is really a problem with the whole show and what I’ll call focus. At this point, I’ve seen sad Serena, sad June and even sad Fred so many times in perfect mood lighting, hitting the same notes over and over again, while the characters around them(the Marthas, Ofmatthew, Moira, even Emily to some extent) have been handed scraps of screen time and only through incredible performances register at all. It’s attention to the core group at the expense of all others(and sensical worldbuilding) that has me wishing, praying, begging for a bit of space from them. It’a claustrophobic in the worst way. I don’t understand or even empathize with the characters more; I’m pleading with them to leave me alone. I understand perfectly that this is June’s story, and to a lesser extent the Waterfords as well, but to me the world of Handmaid’s Tale is that much shallower for refusing to deviate from them even when it would arguably make their stories stronger and more interesting. Part of the power of Atwood’s novel to me is the humanistic quality—-the very real suffocating danger that the protagonist is in at all times, and the intimate desperation, and pain of it— but 3 seasons in, it almost feels totally lost. What’s left is a beautifully shot, wonderfully acted, impressively costumed but ultimately empty product with characters and a world that are becoming more 2-dimensional by the millisecond. All my total grumpiness aside, I think this episode was probably a season highlight, and if it were occurring closer to the beginning or even the middle, I’d be feeling more forgiving.

So Myfanwy’s therapist was brought in by Linda to seduce a lonely, traumatized teenager to get her powers to work? That’s incredibly despicable. I too think the show is better binged. Each episode sort of inches along and doesn’t necessarily feel fulfilling on its own. I feel like adapting this book was always going to be tough because of some formatting choices. There’s a lot of exposition in the first novel and it does seem like the show is a bit overburdened trying to dole it out.

Wasn’t the clue we discovered that Myfanwy had something to do with the destruction of their old boarding school? The same mirror like rock found at the bridge where she murdered the Lugat people hunting her was also buried in the dirt near the decrepit playground. Perhaps she killed other students by accident as a kid and that’s why she’s terrified of her powers? I think I’m liking the story so far? There’s a compelling fragility and desperation to almost everyone from Conrad to Gestalt to Myfanwy to Ingrid. They all seems so alone and seeking some sort of connection, release or control(or maybe all three). The line between good and evil seems pretty blurred. Even the good guys are people that were ripped away from their families and forcibly molded(or broken) into a shape for the State and are policed even as adults in their behavior. Conrad is number 2 at the Chequy but even he must report any relationships he has to vetting officers. Our villains are more capitalist in their selling of EVAs to the highest bidder and letting that person mold the EVA to their liking, but there is similar dispiriting treating people as tools or products. It really does remind me of an Orphan Black(particularly some characters) and Jason Bourne mashup. Totally different from the book but not a bad different for me.

So I think my favorite part of this second season is the depiction of the long lasting effects of sexual assault and domestic violence. These are topics that pop up here and there in films and on tv, but creators seem to be far less interested in the “unglamorous(this may be the wrong way to describe this, maybe more intensely frustrating is what I’m looking for?) aspects of trauma like the struggle to date post and the difficulty of being intimate even with a sweet and understanding partner post-assault or the self-recrimination(why didn’t you know better, maybe it’s your fault after all...). You’re far more likely to see a time jump or the appearance of “the one” person that pushes (easily and swiftly, remember the ratings! ) past a survivor’s defenses rather than the slow and painful claw back to normalcy. And I think that’s too bad because the after effects of an assault or prolonged abuse can be the hardest parts to survive for some including myself. When does the trauma from assault end? Does it ever end or just get easier to live with? Everyone is different of course, and for some it probably is much easier to recover, but I feel like there is an intense public discomfort with the fact that some survivors take a long time to be okay if they ever are. There can be a sentiment of well it was years ago, you should just be over it and it can make you feel defeated and broken when you are still trying to find your way back. A long way of saying that Shailene Woodley has been excellent and her storyline alone justifies season 2 for me. Last season was clearly the year of Kidman, and I think this year was billed as the year of Meryl(who I think is doing pretty good work as well, she reminds me in certain ways of my own mother!), but Shailene has had some of the most difficult and emotionally painful scenes and she’s knocked it out of the park.

This is interesting. I've noticed that on this show in particular that I am far more interested in the girls than the guys too. The ladies seem to embody the complexity of the premise--the next generation struggling with their legacies-- more. Lizzie is mentally ill, self-centered and can't always control her power, which can make her dangerous. Josie is a wallflower unable to bloom and also harboring some darker emotions. Both live in the shadow of characters(like Kai and the whole Gemini line) that came before them and that makes their current struggles take on more weight. I'm a little less interested in Hope because at least the Hope on this show seems a lot more put together characterwise, but even she has had a few intriguing moments. My favorite Hope moment is in an early episode when Alaric realizes that she plans to kill Landon for his betrayal. That was such a Klaus moment, it was cruel but also there was a sort of cold efficiency about it, and for the first time I could see the push and pull of her conscious. Penelope has always been in the middle for me. I've appreciated that she darker than some of the mains but was a little disappointed that her antics only rose to mean girl concerns. I don't dislike the guys on the show or anything, but they seem less complicated. In the (early) seasons of the Originals and Vampire Diaries, part of the appeal was that you were watching a show about powerful monsters. Characters like Katherine, Klaus, and Kai that came and went through the Vampire Diaries were callous, cruel, toxic, and largely unpredictable. Sure they had feelings, and dark pasts, but oftentimes their condition(vampirism, werewolf virus, prison world shenanigans) allowed them to live out their worst lives. I'm not sure there is a guy on this show who gives me the same type of feeling, which I think is a waste of the show's premise. That's not to say that I necessarily want a Klaus-like character on the show. I tired of his behavior pretty early on and the same went for Damon, but I'd love to see Alaric and the school in general handle a problem student. A supernatural that enjoys the darker sides of their condition or struggles more obviously with a terrible and depraved legacy and more often than not lets it win. You've seen that a bit with Hope(the legacy part), but since they've mandated her as the main character, I don't know that you could really go too dark with her. And despite suffering through the endless loop of abuse that is this show's foster system, neither Landon and Rafael seem to have the slightest bit of an edge. Maybe MG as a ripper? But MG at least for now comes off as one of the nicest characters. I do like Kaleb though, which was unexpected. I suspected horrible things after his introduction, but he's actually emerged as one of my favorites.

I disagree with this. More than anything Vanya wanted the attention and love of her father and siblings and because she got neither, she grew to resent them as adults. However, I think it's important to recognize that Vanya wasn't the only child abused by Reginald. All of Vanya's siblings were abused and have not overcome that abuse in the present day. Some of the more outwardly functional siblings are still intensely dysfunctional people. Allison seems pretty well-adjusted until you remember that she built her life on lies and make believe, conning her way through her career, her love life, and even parenting her own daughter. Luther is so devoted to his father that he sublimated his own desires and never got any life experience; he swallowed so much of his father's dogma that he willingly spent 4 years of his life isolated on the moon to pursue a vaguely defined mission. Diego seems to be the most normal, but he was thrown out the police academy and then went on to become a violent vigilante. Klaus became a chronic drug addict terrified of his own powers as a teenager and has not moved on. Ben is freaking dead, but in the flashbacks we get of him, he seems anxious and unhappy. Number Five has his own problems. These are people that can't handle their own personal dramas, how on earth could they handle Vanya's problems as well, especially as children? I think that's a deeply unfair ask. In the present day, they do not include her in some family meetings, but I didn't get the impression that this was malicious. It was how they were raised, and after spending a lot of time apart, they fell back into old patterns. In an earlier episode, Allison observes an isolated Vanya through the security cameras and asks why they never included Vanya. She phrases it in such a way that suggests to me it is occurring to her for the first time. In the series, Allison is cruel to Vanya a few times, but in almost every instance, she realizes that she is being unfair and apologizes to her in person and on the phone. The one time she hesitates on including Vanya in the family meetings is because their house was invaded by gun wielding psychopaths and Vanya has neither the powers or the training to survive. Also, I want to point out that one of the reasons that Diego is nasty to Vanya is because of the book she published about their family. Vanya is allowed to publish a book about her experiences, but Diego is also allowed to be deeply unhappy about the additional spotlight she put on their family.

Thank you for pointing this out. I've been a lurker on this board, but felt compelled to post because this episode really pushed my buttons with its portrayal of mental illness. As someone with bipolar disorder, I've felt nervous about Lizzie since the pilot. Mental illness on tv shows has always been a mixed bag, and this is doubly true for supernatural shows where fantastical powers overlap with mental instability. Characters will go "dark," which can mean anything from mood swings, to suffering from extreme paranoia, and then in a few episodes will be right as rain. But unfortunately for Plec and the writing team, there is no getting rid of bipolar disorder ever. You can medically treat it like many things, but this is not a perfect solution. The "episodes," or the "crazy" as it has been called on this show is lifelong. I've been one of the few that has always liked Lizzie(I also liked season 1 Caroline): She is self-absorbed, deeply insecure, and as people with bipolar disorder can be emotionally unstable. She's made some mistakes for sure, but I find the extreme vitriol she gets on the show itself to be disconcerting. It's not that characters can't call Lizzie out for her selfishness or be annoyed with her for being shallow, but I feel like many of these insults actually bring in her mental illness as reasons why she's a horrible person and they are framed as in the right. We've been invited to cheer on Penelope, Dana and now Josie as they take Lizzie to task even though they use ableist language to do so. I'd like to repeat, there is no cure for bipolar disorder. Lizzie will not be able to stop the "episodes" or stop being crazy. Should Josie be able to live her life without worrying that Lizzie will snap? Of course. I think Lizzie can and should work on her self-awareness and her self-loathing. It can be difficult sometimes to consider other people when you have bipolar disorder because internally you are cycling through different emotions and your thoughts can be irrational, but that is not an excuse not to try. And yet, oddly, this is not really what alternate reality Josie said to Lizzie. It was some equivalent of "Dad and I have spent our entire lives coddling you because of your mental illness and I'm just not going to do it anymore." Why Julie Plec, why? Like you ursula, I think the person that comes off the worst for me is actually Alaric. As the adult and parent, he should realize that making Josie carry the burden of her sister's caretaker is deeply unfair. Lizzie is a mentally ill teenager, what's his excuse? I think we are supposed to view Alaric relationship with Hope as a prime source of Hope's stability. She's alone, powerful and carrying this dark legacy. It makes sense that she'd strongly need an ally. Where it becomes eyebrow raising is that both Lizzie and Josie also have a horrible legacy looming, and Lizzie's instability makes the situation even more dire as we saw in one of the alternate reality episodes where she murdered Josie because of extreme paranoia. Alaric has seemed oddly chill about this potential future, even though he must know it's a possibility. Whew. Anyway, I actually liked this episode a lot. I loved the alternate world scenarios. I liked the scenes we got between Alaric and Lizzie in the last reality. Really good work by the actors. I liked that Lizzie found a loophole and even as broken as she is would not doom the entire world for her own gain. I love how the relationship between Josie and Lizzie emerged as the beating heart of the episode. They have one of my favorite relationships. I also like that we saw Hope soften a bit toward Lizzie at the end and I hope that Lizzie also overcome her jealousy and be nice to Hope. It's interesting, I tend to find episodes with the twins more emotionally satisfying than the ones with Hope as the star. A big part of this might be that Hope has to be on this show without a lot of the cast from the Originals which inform her character. I like Landon well enough, but that dynamic hasn't been as compelling for me as as the twins' strained relationship with their father or with each other.