bobbyjoe

I’ve been skipping this season for this very reason. Just saw the clips and it looks even more nightmarish with that creepy jack-in-the-box outfit than I’d even imagined. It’s going to be hard to shake the image of Nicole and Jenny happily dancing along with all this. I have a new respect for Ken, though: the irony here is that this time the show’s resident clown is the voice of sanity. ETA- I just saw that apparently one of the judge’s guesses for Space Bunny was Buju Banton? Good god. Let’s hope not. Pretty much the only way for the show to go lower than it did tonight would be for them to bring on a performer infamous for singing about killing gay people. Even thinking about that makes me feel sick— was that supposed to be a “fun” guess? What is wrong with this show?

This episode to me was perfection and exactly why I love this show. Brian Tyree Henry does comic frustration better than almost anybody, and the scenes with Wiley (the kid with the guitar) were hilariously weird. It just felt like everybody was at the top of their game. This is one I'd put up there with some of the classic episodes from seasons 1 and 2.

Dear Carolyn, I don’t think this season’s showrunners have any idea what they’re doing. They just killed me with a pizza cutter for cryin’ out loud. How about you just— I dunno— call up somebody and have Villanelle killed so we can just go ahead and end this terrible season? XXOO, Konstantin

This whole season makes me feel insulted as a viewer. I’m just going to pretend that the show ended at the bridge last season and allowed the audience to make up their own minds about what happens to Eve and Villanelle (because I guarantee even some of the most casual viewers could have come up with a better storyline than whatever the hell this season was). Worst finale since the original Dexter.

You’re not missing much, and I say this as someone who is a big fan of Mamet’s early plays. As you saw on Maher’s show, it’s like Mamet’s brains and talents fell out of his head a decade or so ago; I don’t know what happened. A few years ago I went to see one of Mamet’s new plays on Broadway— it starred Al Pacino, and I absolutely love Al Pacino. Pacino did his best, but the play— phew! It is literally the worst play I’ve ever seen on Broadway and I’ve seen a lot of Broadway plays. And not because of politics— it was just really, really a big lazy mess. A college freshman could have written a better play. So I don’t know how Mamet ended up where he is today, but its like something thoroughly rotted his brain, and not just politically.

Frankly, the way this season has been going I could see Ru announcing at next week’s reunion that they’re all back in the competition and every single queen this season is the winner.

I have to be totally honest: I don’t know how I feel if it turns out this season keeps mixing in anthology episodes instead of keeping the focus on our main characters. It probably wouldn’t bug me if we hadn’t had to wait sooooooo long for the show to come back, but I do want to see our main crew. One of the great things about Atlanta is that its been able to use our main characters in creative and fun ways to both give us absurd humor and social commentary through them. Last week’s episode is a good example of that. Even the weirdest episodes, like Teddy Perkins, had connections back to our main characters. If they keep stepping outside the characters, though, it’s going to start feeling like they’re losing interest and would rather be doing a spin-off anthology show. One detour into a “special episode” (like the season premiere) is one thing— and I didn’t think tonight’s episode was bad— but if this is going to be a regular thing this season, I dunno. Maybe I’m just a little burned out on anthologies.

Did anyone else hope that when Ms. Cobel started saying to Helly “I’m going to torture you all” she’d also add “and no more deviled egg parties for you!”

But it turns out Irv, of all people, is the one on the outside who’s been doing the most investigation and research and obviously has an axe to grind against Lumon. He has several of our people mapped; he has those lists… And the revelation that Irv is apparently a decorated vet— I was fascinated with his story. Not what I expected from him. Maybe the reason he’s been the main one seeing the black goo visions inside is because his outie knows a lot more about the real danger Lumon poses. On the same note, I hope Christopher Walken will be in season 2– when Irv shows up at his door and snaps back into his outie personality, maybe he'll draw outie Burt into helping investigate the conspiracy.

I don’t know how they’ve managed it, but this season has been such a jumbled mess I simultaneously feel like the finale has way too much to tie up and not nearly enough. The “way too much” is all this vague, rambling, and needlessly convoluted stuff about the Twelve, and the “not nearly enough” is that they frustratingly didn’t build at all very well to any satisfying climax to Eve and Villanelle’s relationship. I should be feeling “ohmigod I can’t stand having to wait a week until I see how this all ends,” but instead I’m feeling “meh.”

I’m sorry, but Bosco did not win that challenge. I’d have put Bosco toward the middle: Angeria, Camden, and Willow clearly stood out on top, both in performance and the runway. I’m not sure why Bosco got the win, unless it was some weird attempt to justify the gold candy bar last episode. Camden looked freaking absolutely amazing and beautiful on the runway. And just like Ru sometimes has a queen like Jorgeous who he obviously favors and way over-inflates, he usually has another queen who is really good but who he barely gives the time of day. Camden seems to fit that role for Ru this season— it took her forever to finally win, and while people like Ross note how good Camden is, Ru usually treats her like “you were fine. Anyway, next contestant…” It drives me crazy. On another note, I have a theory: I think that Daya is actually identical twins, one good and one evil. The good Daya appears on stage and is actually talented (she deserved the LSFYL win), but the second she leaves the stage the evil Daya pushes her into a broom closet and locks her up, and then spends every waking moment whining about everything and obnoxiously criticizing the other queens. That’s the only explanation. There is no other. 🙂

Yeah, I’ve kind of lost the thread of exactly what’s happening or why. Particularly as we get so close to the end. It’s like, now Villanelle’s cavorting on an island with another assassin, because… uhhh… ? It almost feels like MadLibs, like: “next week, Eve __disguises herself as a robot__ to hunt the twelve; while Carolyn yells at a _street mime_; and Villanelle _takes a ride on a zeppelin_” I’d be like, okay, and go along with it, but I’d still be scratching my head a little

So happy for Lady Camden!. Credit where credit is due: I absolutely despise Daya back-stage and in her talking heads, but on-stage and on the runway she was good tonight (loved the KISS outfit). Again, the editing and the producer’s rigging was so obvious that my husband announced thirty minutes into the show (and we were watching it on first airing): “Bosco and Jorgeous in the bottom two, Bosco gets eliminated but has the golden chocolate bar” and was exactly right. C’mon producers and editors say it with me now: less predictability please! Thank god that damned chocolate bar is gone. If Ru pulls some “shantay you both stay” bullshit next episode I may throw my television set through the window.

The strangest storyline of the season is Watson, the bald servant in the Russell household. He’s played by the great Michael Cerveris of Broadway (like Sweeney Todd) and television (like Fringe) fame, so there would seem to be a reason for casting such a strong actor in the role. But his storyline goes nowhere and is never explained. We see him hanging around outside someone’s house on one episode; going up to her door on another episode and asking her if she remembers him; then when Flora McNeil is announced at the ball in the finale it’s the woman he was watching and he gives her a furtive look. That’s it. There’s no real explanation. Out of this great big cast we tend to get at least some explanation of all of their stories, but Watson remains a mystery. Did: A) I miss something; B) some scenes that better explained this storyline were left on the cutting room floor; or C) Julian Fellowes simply forgot about developing or even explaining this storyline?

This is exactly where I am right now and shows what a disastrous decision that particular choice was. Even if they edited it out, unless they fess up to it being edited out, there’s always going to be the expectation that person might still be there. It seems like they're just making some terrible decisions this season, and that was only one of them. Also, reading about who’s been revealed so far, including tonight, it really sounds like a “who cares” season. None of those sound like particularly fun or exciting reveals. Maybe the show desperately needs a new casting agency?

If Eve’s husband can survive a pitchfork I’m guessing Villanelle can survive a single arrow. I’d actually be impressed if a show killed off one of its two main leads three episodes before it ended, but I’m not gonna bet the farm (even the one where Eve’s husband got pitchforked) on that happening.

That was a loooooooong way to go to eliminate somebody who’d already been on the bottom several times, but as others have said at least we finally got an elimination. I’m just imagining how many people’s heads would have exploded if Jasmine had opened her candy bar and it had been gold. 😀 ETA: Daya, please please please go away

I think I’m going to scream. What the heck has happened to this season? It started out so well, I like a lot of these queens— some of them quite a bit, and Ru felt like she finally had her joy back. And now we’re bogged down in… whatever this is. This isn’t fun. Also, on an overall note about the show, Snatch Game was historically terrible tonight, but it’s been on a downward spiral the last few years. One thing that could help is (I believe) the rules are that they have to play somebody real and not a famous fictional character. Maybe that needs to change. Because a lot of queens feel like they’re choosing just really uninspired choices of real people, and maybe some crazy film, tv, and cartoon characters might bring Snatch Game back to some over-the-top fun.

Do you still hear the goats, Clarice?

The big problem with this season is that this is a story that TNG might have covered in a two-parter and the Original Series might have knocked out in one episode. “Mysterious aliens are threatening, but we find out we just don’t know how to communicate with them yet”— this is kind of a classic Trek story but nobody needed 13 episodes to tell it before. Also, story-wise (“let’s communicate through technology! How exciting!”) this has started reminding me of more than anything is Star Trek:The Motion Picture, and is that really the part of the franchise anybody wants to emulate? This season’s story is s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d beyond sense and it comes at the cost of sacrificing what could be much more interesting stories about how this future future works, what factions like the Klingons are doing now, etc. If you made a cut of what was actually interesting this season it would consist of Jett Reno’s scenes and the scenes between Saru and T’rina, and it’d be about twenty minutes long. Speaking of Reno, she makes sitting there eating licorice eight billion times more interesting than the way Burnham is written with “now I’m going to suddenly announce the solution to this problem; and now I’m going to suddenly announce the solution to this problem; and, oh, we have another problem, let me suddenly announce the solution to that; and, oh wait, here’s another problem, I just happen to have a thought…”

They were a little out of control this time putting up people’s names in big letters every time a character appeared— it got to be funny, which may have been the point— there were so many I was kind of surprised they didn’t put up “FISH” when Eve looked in the fish tank.

Since Snatch Game isn’t until next week, it was obvious from the start that there wasn’t going to be an elimination since they need eight queens. So what did we watch? A ninety minute commercial for DragCon?* The LSFYL was good but if anybody told me that under the circumstances both queens didn’t know in advance that there wasn’t going to be an elimination, I wouldn’t believe them. * I’d love to go to DragCon but I’ve never been. But I’m guessing that the panels are a little more than just a bunch of queens sitting around comparing their family past and coming out stories? Like, Ru seems to think that this is the only thing to talk about, but I’d love to see one of these panel competitions where they instead share stories about the art of drag and interesting things that have happened in their careers.

My mother always told me if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. I was glad to see Reno. Well, I guess that’s about it.

My husband said something similar: he said the “Villanelle goes Christian” side story could/should have been done in a previous season, but being that it’s the final season and there aren’t that many more episodes left, Villanelle needs to stop wandering around and get back into the main action ASAP. The best scene was Eve at Helene’s with the hot stove. “Does it hurt?” “Only if I let it.” Second favorite scene was Carolyn’s reaction on learning the woman with the donkey tattoo had been killed. Sure, Carolyn should have realized that was going to happen, but Fiona Shaw is so excellent as always she really sold Carolyn’s complicated reaction.

That lip sync was terrible, from both sides. If Jorgeous gave us one of the best LSFYL in drag race history a few weeks ago, tonight’s was one of the worst. Thing is, though, bad as they both were, it was easy to predict which was going home before the LS, and really pretty easy to predict who was going home before we even got to the actual girl group performances. Why? Because the editing has been particularly, glaringly obvious all season. If you can pick out which queen is A) suddenly getting a lot more screen time and B) gives some sob story about her family background, you know exactly who's going home. They really need to shake this up; surprise us more often. If all we saw was Daya Betty in the performances and runway, I’d be a fan. But, wow, when we’re back in the werkroom she is seriously getting on my very last nerve.