S01.E01: Pilot

[sistermagpie]

7 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

I guess you mean that when you saw her in the part you were instantly aware of how old she really is.

 

Actually I didn't mean that, I don't think. I meant just that the character comes across a certain way and I think her being 37 might be part of the reason for it. If she was younger, even if she wasn't quite so young as the character is supposed to be, she might project something more like naivete that would make the character different. Like when she talks to her mother it doesn't at all seem like I'm watching a mother scared for her 19-year-old who's doing something stupid. They seem like two adult women talking to each other. Not because Abby looks old, but because she doesn't at all come across as young.

[stillshimpy]

On 9/22/2017 at 0:01 PM, sistermagpie said:

Actually I didn't mean that, I don't think. I meant just that the character comes across a certain way and I think her being 37 might be part of the reason for it. If she was younger, even if she wasn't quite so young as the character is supposed to be, she might project something more like naivete that would make the character different. Like when she talks to her mother it doesn't at all seem like I'm watching a mother scared for her 19-year-old who's doing something stupid. They seem like two adult women talking to each other. Not because Abby looks old, but because she doesn't at all come across as young.

I agree it would take an incredibly remarkable 18-19-year-old to exude that level of self-possession and confidence.   For whatever it is or isn't worth, it didn't even occur to me to question the actor's age, but her bearing is that of a grown woman and whereas that's part of the character, I don't think there was much explanation for it within the story.   It would be interesting to learn more about her backstory. 

That said, I'm not sure I'm going to be around to see it, it has Standard Simon Pacing which requires patience and investment.  No problem there, I'm interested.  It has the commitment to an aesthetic meant to evoke a real sense of being there, rather than some prettied up nostalgia designed to make people long for the past.  It was downright repulsive in many of its details. 

I think it's an interesting story and as usual, Simon has managed to cast incredibly well, I did get a little lost on the twin issue and only had it finally click into place when Frankie entered the bar but until then, I'd actually just believed Vinnie that his brother was in Vietnam (even though I was confused as to why there would still be current debts) so I thought it was Vinnie pretending to be Frankie, so that he could place bets.   Yes, I know.  Surprisingly I didn't actually hit my head yesterday, I just believed the "Oh, he's in Vietnam?  His brother is placing bets under his name?  Interesting."   That's mostly down to my personal take on James Franco: he's like my personal antidote to captivation.  I have to make myself pay attention to the man which is odd because he definitely has talent.  I just always want to look elsewhere when he's on a screen.  It has nothing to do with the way he looks, he just has a distancing impact on me.  I can't explain it better than that.  

As realistic as I know it is -- and perhaps it is because I am aware of how realistic it is -- I don't really want to watch women being abused and cut up while everyone just looks away.  I tuned in because Simon commits to a world and puts you into it and in this instance, it's proving to be a little difficult for me.   I want the women working for CC to get the jump on him and take away his razor, stuff him in the trunk of his (literally) pimped out ride, and roll that sucker into the Hudson.  It's knowing that it won't happen that makes me question how long I can hang with this story.  

Vinnie's wife cracked me up endlessly "I'm sorry for some of the stuff I did, okay?"  Hey, an honest apology beats the hell out of an insincere one but I can understand why that didn't exactly cry "New Beginning" to anyone. 

It's an oppressive atmosphere and that's the point and I'll see how it goes but it's one I'll have to watch by myself since in a million years I will never get my husband to watch a show in which women are carved up and one of the central characters listens to it happening.  I know it's a story about the helplessness that poverty can engender and the desperate choices people can make because of that.  I'm glad that they are taking a pass on any Happy Hooker nonsense because those women were not safe and society did not care what happened to them.   But one of my SIL's is a heroin addict in recovery and she ended up in LA at one point, and there was prostitution involved in that.  Steel yourselves, here's a nice story from that that is also entirely true:   A relatively new LAPD officer (pretty sure his newness was key) actually bought her a plane ticket and sent her home to Ohio, almost certainly saving her life.   So it would take an act from the entire Greek Pantheon of gods to get my husband to watch this for really obvious reasons.  

I'm currently uncertain.  It's clearly going to be a great show and I don't mind the glacial pacing Simon tends to choose within his first few episodes, I'm just not sure I have the emotional stamina right now for a show that is going to have even more exploitation and mistreatment of women as its central story.  Simon won't likely bow to the need for artifice and fictional constructs to pretty up the reality and at least two of those women seem to be on the fast track to being killed.   

The hardest I ever cried during a TV show was the finale of Season Four of The Wire (and I'm one who loathes the 5th season as being uncharacteristically weak) so I know how Simon can just emotionally deck an audience.  

I guess I will see what the next episode brings but even the thought of watching this very dark show during the day causes me to wince a little.  The time period it is relfecting was a dark time, the industry it is going to end up exploring is one that abuses the hell out of women and our current world is pretty darkly turbulent. 

tl; dr version:  I think I might have to wimp out on this one because I'm not sure my B Vitamin supplements are up to the task.  

Edited September 25, 2017 by stillshimpy
Failing brain syndrome: originally used "steal" instead of "steel". Marvelous.

[Medicine Crow]

4 hours ago, stillshimpy said:

I guess I will see what the next episode brings but even the thought of watching this very dark show during the day causes me to wince a little.

I totally "hear you"!!  I'll be watching on Monday, early evening, because I need to have time to process & forget.

[Milburn Stone]

5 hours ago, stillshimpy said:

I agree it would take an incredibly remarkable 18-19-year-old to exude that level of self-possession and confidence.   For whatever it is or isn't worth, it didn't even occur to me to question the actor's age, but her bearing is that of a grown woman and whereas that's part of the character, I don't think there was much explanation for it within the story.

Loved your whole post, @stillshimpy. Just want to comment on this part.

I bought that Abby had enormous self-possession at 19, because when I was in college (in the Paleolithic era, i.e. the period of this show) I knew girls like that. (And was in complete awe of them.) I knew girls who could seduce a professor for ulterior motives, and who were brave enough to make iconoclastic lifestyle choices. So I didn't need any backstory to explain Abby, any more than I knew any backstory on the real life girls she reminded me of. (Of which backstory I had zero, since I didn't dare approach them, let alone learn anything about them.) She just made sense to me.

[sistermagpie]

5 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

I bought that Abby had enormous self-possession at 19, because when I was in college (in the Paleolithic era, i.e. the period of this show) I knew girls like that. (And was in complete awe of them.) I knew girls who could seduce a professor for ulterior motives, and who were brave enough to make iconoclastic lifestyle choices. So I didn't need any backstory to explain Abby, any more than I knew any backstory on the real life girls she reminded me of. (Of which backstory I had zero, since I didn't dare approach them, let alone learn anything about them.) She just made sense to me.

Oh, I don't have a problem believing what she's doing. It just seems like if you're writing a story about some girl from the suburbs who decides to go slumming then part of the story should be that no matter how self-possessed she comes across when with other people from her world, the fact that she's a middle-class kid would be a big part of her affect. Like this is the only time in her life when she would be going out with this bartender. When they interact now they seem like almost too natural a couple to me. If she fits in this well why not just make her a girl friend neighborhood who got out and is friends with the guys still?

I can't say how the audience in general reacts to the character, of course, but for instance I was listening to a podcast that thought she was a weak link and they felt she was miscast and came across as "smug." I think if she gave off the impression that her confidence was somewhat connected to cluelessness (which would be the usual in that situation) she'd be more compelling. Otherwise I find myself just wondering why the show would need a cool middle class girl slumming at all? She's not needed as someone for the audience to identify with. I feel like that character might work better as a side character who's just part of the scenery in that world. As a pov character it makes me think more about her and wonder if she's just not as real as the others.

[stillshimpy]

Good to see your screenname, @Milburn Stone , it's been a while and I always enjoy your thoughts.  

 

14 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

Oh, I don't have a problem believing what she's doing. It just seems like if you're writing a story about some girl from the suburbs who decides to go slumming then part of the story should be that no matter how self-possessed she comes across when with other people from her world, the fact that she's a middle-class kid would be a big part of her affect. Like this is the only time in her life when she would be going out with this bartender. When they interact now they seem like almost too natural a couple to me. If she fits in this well why not just make her a girl friend neighborhood who got out and is friends with the guys still?

I can't say how the audience in general reacts to the character, of course, but for instance I was listening to a podcast that thought she was a weak link and they felt she was miscast and came across as "smug." I think if she gave off the impression that her confidence was somewhat connected to cluelessness (which would be the usual in that situation) she'd be more compelling. Otherwise I find myself just wondering why the show would need a cool middle class girl slumming at all? She's not needed as someone for the audience to identify with. I feel like that character might work better as a side character who's just part of the scenery in that world. As a pov character it makes me think more about her and wonder if she's just not as real as the others.

She had enough of a worldly air about her that I actually questioned whether or not she was simply a middle-class girl from the suburbs.  I wondered what her background was going to end up being.  She handled that police officer incredibly well, she wasn't in the least cowed by any authority he possessed.  That alone made me think she's from a background that has a different set of consequences for misbehavior.  

I hope we end up learning more about her background but I didn't think "suburban teen in NYC", I assumed she's from some wealth and status simply because of the way she handled that cop.   

20 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

I bought that Abby had enormous self-possession at 19, because when I was in college (in the Paleolithic era, i.e. the period of this show) I knew girls like that. (And was in complete awe of them.) I knew girls who could seduce a professor for ulterior motives, and who were brave enough to make iconoclastic lifestyle choices.

I agree that, particularly for the time period, there would have been young women really reveling in their own personal power as it was the first time society had gotten around to embracing the concept of women, equality, and a right to agency over one's own choices and bodies.   So from a cultural standpoint, I felt that a lot of her words and actions made sense.  That she seems very firmly grounded in them made me wonder if her background won't perhaps be more affluent than that of a middle-class girl from the suburbs.  She had a level of sophistication that was pretty arresting.  

I thought that Candy and Abby had a bit of a parallel vibe to them.  Candy's background seems to have been the middle-class girl from a borough if not the suburbs and a lot of her feelings of empowerment and right-to-self was obvious when she was on the street but seemingly melted away as soon as she was back in her solidly middle-class teenage bedroom.  

The feeling that we were seeing the end to Abby's story in the current reality of Candy's really intrigued me, particularly when Abby seemed to decide to either drop out of college or at least drop that class.   I don't think it's going to be quite that straight-forward but it did strike me that we know the history to follow and whereas this a time when women were embracing their personal power, it was also a time that society was still trying to catch up with what that meant for women while moving through the world.  If Abby was choosing to leave the relatively safe world at the end, I'm a little nervous for how well that will go for her overall.  Even though it was the "you've come a long way" time period, it was also, "...and it's going to be a long, long journey". 

Edited September 25, 2017 by stillshimpy

[ganesh]

That took a long time to watch. I feel like there's some type of trend about shows not really being about anything, but it will be successful because it's "authentic" or "beautifully shot" or whatever. I guess it's supposed to revolve around the twins and the people who come into their orbit. I think after 84 minutes they could have established some narrative direction if they wanted to.

I can't say they didn't create interesting characters though, and I shouldn't gripe too much because I did really enjoy Treme, so I suppose if that's the template, then it should be interesting. 

I don't have much of an issue of an actor's real life age versus the characters. I think the show can get away with it because in the early 70s-80s even kids were more "grown up".