Bingewatching I've done in my free time

ღ - I watched The Umbrella Academy and I really enjoyed it a lot, enough to marathon it pretty quickly. It's a fascinating look at a group of really fucked up people who don't realize just how much they're hurting each other, because they're so wrapped up in their own pain, how their childhood abuse and the deliberate ways they were harmed continues to affect them, but now they have to stop blaming their dad and start owning their own behavior, it was wrenching, but also really rewarding an experience.

I've talked about this a bit on tumblr, where I think the show both succeeds and doesn't quite succeed, is in that the plot itself is pretty routine, it takes a backseat to the Hargreeves' family drama. I think this is absolutely what the story should be about! But, at the same time, it does make things terribly predictable, in a way that would be difficult to get around, because the apocalypse mystery never really gets much attention beyond being set dressing. I had no problem with any particular scene and I thought the number of episodes was just right to give everyone's reactions time to breathe/for me to really feel them, yet something still feels not quite clicked into place.

That said, it has charm and charisma in absolute spades, I couldn't put the show down, the performances are all fantastic, I had intense affection for the entire cast, and I really, really want a second season, because I think they could go some really fascinating places. I can see why it's gotten all the buzz it's been getting!

ღ - In contrast, I don't think I've seen much buzz for Russian Doll, but maybe I'm just out of the loop on these things. I checked it out after seeing a brief comment cross my dash + I like Natasha Lyonne + the premise sounded interesting! In contrast to TUA, if this one doesn't get a second season (though, there is a lot of room for it), I would be satisfied because the structure of the story absolutely nailed what it needed to do.

I started the show wanting answers about the time loop mystery, why and how it was happening, but the end of the show had me caring very little about that, because it wasn't really a story about the metaphysics of it all, but instead a story about people and connections to each other. It was a story about what these people needed for themselves and in their connections to someone else and where the characters ended up was incredibly satisfying for that.

I liken it to TUA a lot, because they both have stories with central figures about damaged people who have to own up to how much they're hurting people around them, that whatever damage their parents inflicted on them was real, but now they have to deal with their own shit, especially complicated and messy female characters (THERE ARE NEVER ENOUGH), and tell stories that really scratch that itch of exploring how difficult a path that is, but it's ultimately very rewarding.

BUT ALSO it's just really fun, there's some great aesthetics and great dialogue (pretty much everything that comes out of Nadia's mouth is G O L D) and is great for when you're hungry for something with some punch, but you won't lose your will to live over.

ღ - More podcasts! I've been bad and I'm listening to Sword and Scale again, because it's like a trainwreck and I can't look away! It's the same thing with why I still listen to Hollywood Babble-On, which is really pretty terrible with the sexism and crassness, but ease of familiarity and the occasional genuine IRL LOL they wring out of me, is a hard momentum to overcome.

I have one episode left of Gone Fishing, which is a 8 part (and they're only about half hour length) podcast about a woman jailed for killing someone that there's a strong suspicion she very clearly did not and the complicated web of why they can't really just let her go. I'm not usually into Australian podcasts--much as I love the accent, it distracts during true crime podcasts for me--but this one hooked me hard and it's a great look into the case, totally recommended.

ღ - I watched Fyre (the Netflix one, I've only just started Fyre Fraud, the Hulu one) and I knew the basic outline, of course, but watching the trainwreck happen over the course of a couple of hours was fascinating. I do think that they kind of went soft on the whole thing, especially considering the HUGE REVEALS that happen in the last 20-30 minutes that basically just get brushed over (I understand why, they're trying to build a sense of betrayal, like you think this guy is just incompetent, then WHAM you find out what's really going on, but I don't think they hammered it home enough at the end and should have had a better balance for it), but they certainly captured the feeling of being unable to look away from the whole thing and you get why so many people got sucked into this thing. Very much recommended!

ღ - Most of what time I spend on-line lately has been making Battlefront II gifs because Anakin finally came to the game and he's sooooo beautiful. I'm only sad that you can't mod this game like Skyrim, where I could grab adult mods and make my characters bang. (You have no idea how tempted I am to make Star Wars lookalikes, but that's a lot of work and the world doesn't really lend itself that well to a Star Wars crossover. OTHERWISE I WOULD HAVE.)

Other than that, I've been catching up on comics and trying to clear a little backlog before Queen's Shadow comes out. SO CURIOUS ABOUT IT. I wonder why we didn't get an excerpt from it, though?