no apostrophe
Some quick TV-watching updates because...well, because. Also, otherwise they would never happen, and the world would go on without knowing what I have been watching, and that would obviously never do.
Oh my god The Good Wife has just gone where I wanted it to go but didn't think it would for another season. Florrick, Agos and Associates IS FUCKING GO!
I... will admit to a moment of trepidation, because to me that was the obvious end point of Alicia's story, not something they'd do with a season to go. But despite the whole thing with Kalinda's husband, which was a massive mistake, I do think I trust them to go through with this well. Mostly, that's because I love Alicia (HI ALICIA), and partly because this actually makes the love triangle plot make sense. I mean, partly it's a character thing for all three people involved: their feelings make them complicated. But also I think, in retrospect, it works for me as an example of the way the choices don't stop once you've reached a position of power.
Because the thing is, by almost any measure, Alicia has succeeded ridiculously well. She's got the fancy suits now, she's a partner. But what that means is an ongoing thing. Being a partner, at the moment, means not treating the secretaries very well...and she could, if she chose, go along with that. But it would be a choice. And I think that similarly, staying with Peter and just being the First Lady of Illinois would be a choice. She could do that, and it would be a kind of power. But she wants to make her own choices. And so I can see that staying with Peter - choosing Peter - has to be a choice, not something she does because there's no other option. She got him to promise he'd never put her through hell again, before she'd agree to renew her vows. And I think choosing Will would be the equivalent of staying at Lockhart Gardner: not necessarily bad, but a choice where the power balance was at best compromised. So she made her own Option Three, and I love that!
Because whatever arguments exist against Peter - and there are plenty - there's also this: she has value for Peter. She has leverage, she's already shown him not only that she can be useful but also that if he doesn't respect her she will walk the fuck away. Will... doesn't have that. And I do think it's a bit off that there was no 'team single' option really, but I really put that down to wanting to avoid the 'feminist = anti-sex' thing. I also don't think it's at all a coincidence that we've had Will get more and more mooney about Alicia while supporting her at work less. He respects her, but that doesn't mean he'll put Alicia's choices as equally valid to his (like, he didn't even tell her about the decision re. the secretaries). Whereas Peter, for all his faults, has been taking Alicia's choices seriously, and listening to her as a professional. And it's the support and respect as a professional, as an actor within and upon the world, that matters most, there, I think.
Plus, I think they're saying: once you've got the power to exercise your agency in more meaningful ways, it doesn't get any easier to exercise it. It just gets more complicated. There is no right choice, necessarily. And so Alicia is going to have to find out about the video at some point and renegotiate, and we the audience know how complicated the context is in which all those choices are made... but she doesn't. She knows some of it, but mostly, she just has to choose.
Argh, I dunno. I do know that I LOVE HER and I am happy to see a season of her figuring out how to exercise her agency as a name partner in her own firm, though. :D And I am hoping that we get some Alicia and Kalinda bonding moments again, because that's been the thing I've missed, omg.
Also, I need an Elementary icon, because I am up to episode 16 and am loving it.
I actually have SO MANY thoughts about it as a Holmes adaptation I will have to write about it later, I think. I absolutely love it, though: I think it puts Sherlock to goddamn shame, in many ways. (Sherlock is visually more innovative. I think in every other way basically Elementary kicks it in the dust.)
First: New York City! YES THAT IS WHERE NEW HOLMES WOULD LIVE. The whole thing with London in the books is that it is the hub of the world: it is the city, where everything happens that happens anywhere and Holmes can see it all. We don't really have an equivalent these days, but if we did it would be New York. (And when we met Sherlock's equivalent of the Baker Street Irregulars, I went OMG YES OF COURSE.)
Second: WATSON! I love Joan Watson so much, and mostly because she tells Holmes where he's wrong way more than John does on Sherlock, even though Sherlock on Sherlock is about 90 times more of a disrespectful dickhead. And he listens to her! She's totally the true hero of Elementary and I love that.
I actually specifically love that they are extremely platonic. In my head, I actually feel like that is more validating of the Holmes/Watson slash of my heart than the stage-gay of Sherlock - not that I didn't enjoy the stage-gay, mind you. But having them put these two people, who could potentially be into each other but aren't, as the equivalents of the two men from the canon sends the message, to me, that those two men are also equally potentially able to be into each other. (Even if you then think they aren't.)
Also, I love that I am sixteen episodes in and I haven't seen anyone be disrespected yet. No women, no drug addicts, nobody. Well, okay, Holmes is dismissive of serial killers as not being all that great, but even that isn't really in a disrespectful way, that takes away from the fact they're people: it's just saying he thinks those people are nasty and not to be revered, which is, well, fair enough. I have no problem with not revering the guy who chops people up for fun.
I am not sure what I think about the Moran/Moriarty thing yet. Moran being referenced made me happy (although yo, he would not say "the Arsenal" like that!) but mostly I really hope they do Moriarty better than Sherlock did because that was ridiculous. But mostly I want to see more Joan Watson being FUCKING WONDERFUL. I LOVE YOU, JOAN.
I am a couple of episodes into The Americans and it is SUPER tense but in the best way. I think it is probably actually the best thing on television right now. If you like stories about spies, people, history, paranoia, lying, families, badass action heroes, finding the empathy for the stranger, or really just very storytelling, you should watch this. Also, people who know me will know how rarely it is that I ship the canonical het ship, but... OH MAN do I here. (Mostly because it is like the opposite of your traditional canon het ship. Seriously. But yes I ship it THIS MUCH and I will write more about why when I'm not falling asleep.)
I haven't seen Mad Men yet this season but I hope to catch up this weekend, because I just realised it's a bank holiday here! Hurrah.
This entry was originally posted at http://soupytwist.dreamwidth.org/108060.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Oh my god The Good Wife has just gone where I wanted it to go but didn't think it would for another season. Florrick, Agos and Associates IS FUCKING GO!
I... will admit to a moment of trepidation, because to me that was the obvious end point of Alicia's story, not something they'd do with a season to go. But despite the whole thing with Kalinda's husband, which was a massive mistake, I do think I trust them to go through with this well. Mostly, that's because I love Alicia (HI ALICIA), and partly because this actually makes the love triangle plot make sense. I mean, partly it's a character thing for all three people involved: their feelings make them complicated. But also I think, in retrospect, it works for me as an example of the way the choices don't stop once you've reached a position of power.
Because the thing is, by almost any measure, Alicia has succeeded ridiculously well. She's got the fancy suits now, she's a partner. But what that means is an ongoing thing. Being a partner, at the moment, means not treating the secretaries very well...and she could, if she chose, go along with that. But it would be a choice. And I think that similarly, staying with Peter and just being the First Lady of Illinois would be a choice. She could do that, and it would be a kind of power. But she wants to make her own choices. And so I can see that staying with Peter - choosing Peter - has to be a choice, not something she does because there's no other option. She got him to promise he'd never put her through hell again, before she'd agree to renew her vows. And I think choosing Will would be the equivalent of staying at Lockhart Gardner: not necessarily bad, but a choice where the power balance was at best compromised. So she made her own Option Three, and I love that!
Because whatever arguments exist against Peter - and there are plenty - there's also this: she has value for Peter. She has leverage, she's already shown him not only that she can be useful but also that if he doesn't respect her she will walk the fuck away. Will... doesn't have that. And I do think it's a bit off that there was no 'team single' option really, but I really put that down to wanting to avoid the 'feminist = anti-sex' thing. I also don't think it's at all a coincidence that we've had Will get more and more mooney about Alicia while supporting her at work less. He respects her, but that doesn't mean he'll put Alicia's choices as equally valid to his (like, he didn't even tell her about the decision re. the secretaries). Whereas Peter, for all his faults, has been taking Alicia's choices seriously, and listening to her as a professional. And it's the support and respect as a professional, as an actor within and upon the world, that matters most, there, I think.
Plus, I think they're saying: once you've got the power to exercise your agency in more meaningful ways, it doesn't get any easier to exercise it. It just gets more complicated. There is no right choice, necessarily. And so Alicia is going to have to find out about the video at some point and renegotiate, and we the audience know how complicated the context is in which all those choices are made... but she doesn't. She knows some of it, but mostly, she just has to choose.
Argh, I dunno. I do know that I LOVE HER and I am happy to see a season of her figuring out how to exercise her agency as a name partner in her own firm, though. :D And I am hoping that we get some Alicia and Kalinda bonding moments again, because that's been the thing I've missed, omg.
Also, I need an Elementary icon, because I am up to episode 16 and am loving it.
I actually have SO MANY thoughts about it as a Holmes adaptation I will have to write about it later, I think. I absolutely love it, though: I think it puts Sherlock to goddamn shame, in many ways. (Sherlock is visually more innovative. I think in every other way basically Elementary kicks it in the dust.)
First: New York City! YES THAT IS WHERE NEW HOLMES WOULD LIVE. The whole thing with London in the books is that it is the hub of the world: it is the city, where everything happens that happens anywhere and Holmes can see it all. We don't really have an equivalent these days, but if we did it would be New York. (And when we met Sherlock's equivalent of the Baker Street Irregulars, I went OMG YES OF COURSE.)
Second: WATSON! I love Joan Watson so much, and mostly because she tells Holmes where he's wrong way more than John does on Sherlock, even though Sherlock on Sherlock is about 90 times more of a disrespectful dickhead. And he listens to her! She's totally the true hero of Elementary and I love that.
I actually specifically love that they are extremely platonic. In my head, I actually feel like that is more validating of the Holmes/Watson slash of my heart than the stage-gay of Sherlock - not that I didn't enjoy the stage-gay, mind you. But having them put these two people, who could potentially be into each other but aren't, as the equivalents of the two men from the canon sends the message, to me, that those two men are also equally potentially able to be into each other. (Even if you then think they aren't.)
Also, I love that I am sixteen episodes in and I haven't seen anyone be disrespected yet. No women, no drug addicts, nobody. Well, okay, Holmes is dismissive of serial killers as not being all that great, but even that isn't really in a disrespectful way, that takes away from the fact they're people: it's just saying he thinks those people are nasty and not to be revered, which is, well, fair enough. I have no problem with not revering the guy who chops people up for fun.
I am not sure what I think about the Moran/Moriarty thing yet. Moran being referenced made me happy (although yo, he would not say "the Arsenal" like that!) but mostly I really hope they do Moriarty better than Sherlock did because that was ridiculous. But mostly I want to see more Joan Watson being FUCKING WONDERFUL. I LOVE YOU, JOAN.
I am a couple of episodes into The Americans and it is SUPER tense but in the best way. I think it is probably actually the best thing on television right now. If you like stories about spies, people, history, paranoia, lying, families, badass action heroes, finding the empathy for the stranger, or really just very storytelling, you should watch this. Also, people who know me will know how rarely it is that I ship the canonical het ship, but... OH MAN do I here. (Mostly because it is like the opposite of your traditional canon het ship. Seriously. But yes I ship it THIS MUCH and I will write more about why when I'm not falling asleep.)
I haven't seen Mad Men yet this season but I hope to catch up this weekend, because I just realised it's a bank holiday here! Hurrah.
This entry was originally posted at http://soupytwist.dreamwidth.org/108060.html. Please comment there using OpenID.