What were your thoughts on Elle? I loved it so much more than I expected too - I really enjoyed all of the characters and Lexi did an amazing job playing Elle!
I loved it! I thought Lexi was an incredible Elle Woods, it’s funny and surprisingly heartfelt and took really good care of such a beloved franchise and character.
I think there are places where it gets tripped up — but not necessarily in the same places that I thought it was going to get tripped up? Like, I actually understand the idea of her going to Seattle in high school and then going to Harvard in college. Because if you watch legally blonde, she actually goes to Harvard and has full and utter confidence. Yes, she gets momentarily torn down when particularly a bunch of women are giving her a hard time, but she bounces back incredibly quickly. I think that you can use her experience in Seattle, where it takes her a much longer time to work through feeling terrible about being bullied and judged, to how confident she is in Harvard and around all those people. Like it truly doesn’t bother Elle at Harvard that she’s being judged. It’s almost like she doesn’t even notice it until it gets in the classroom and people start questioning her intelligence. So I actually see the connection there and I am OK with that narrative it feels in line with the story to me.
But, as a legally blonde fan, there are other inconsistencies that don’t make sense to me. Like, the love triangle is sort of an issue for me. I really like Dustin, but I don’t believe for a second that L in high school would be dating someone like Dustin. If she is so in love with someone like Warner in the movies where she wants to change her entire life in order to marry him, someone who’s so clearly wrong for her and a douche, then it doesn’t make sense that she would date the deep complex Guy so young. And Miles isn’t a bad guy, he just isn’t necessarily perfect for her or as deep as dust, so it just makes so much more sense that they would be a couple.
I also don’t really, and it’s a small thing, but it’s still there, like how different the parents are? That being said, I love the parents in L the TV show. I do not like Ella’s parents in the movie, but the movie was there first, and her parents basically have no faith in her in the movie and really feel obviously much more one-dimensional and less invested in her, whereas in the show they Truly think she is incredible and can do anything that she puts her mind too. It’s not really anything they could get around because there’s no way that you could make her parents in a TV show that’s going to have multiple seasons be flat unsupportive people, and I do think that they do their best in the sense of navigating her mom‘s discontent with Seattle and sort of pulling a little personality from the movies there, But it’s still an inconsistency.
Part of me wishes that L would have been a show like clueless, where she stays in Bel Air and we just see her life there. Because Allen legally blonde is still a good person. She’s smart, she’s sharp, she’s kind, she’s all the things there are just other life events that she needs to go through in order to reach her best self. So it’s not like we’d be watching an unlikable main character if she had stayed in Bel Air. At the same time I do like the juxtaposition of her in Seattle and I really like a lot of the supporting characters in the show.
The one other criticism I have about the show is how a few of the characters feel so much like a plot device. I am forgetting the name of this character because she was so insignificant in the larger scope of things and I saw the show about a month ago, but Miles‘s ex-girlfriend feels like she should be so much more of an important character in the fabric of the series than she actually is. She comes in and goes out just to move the plot along for L‘s benefit in a glaring way that feels like it needed a massive rewrite almost like a character. You would write when you are learning how to write scripts in college. It is really really obvious, especially when there are other characters who are given the benefit of being dynamic and complex like the rest of L’s friends in Seattle.
It’s so strange to me that this girl comes in as a life line for L just when she needs it and then happens to be the person that is dating the guy that she likes just for added conflict only for her to break up with sad guy for no real substantial reason that we find out just so El and then be with sad guy and it can move along conflict, but not so much that we turn on L, just for this girl too then have her mom die, which then propels the plot forward even more only for her to then leave and be gone for multiple episodes and L doesn’t have to deal with the fall out of that, then, just for her to come back again, and drop this truth bomb about the cosmopolitan magazine article. She’s not an actual character in the show that gets to live and breathe and feel present in the moment, she is literally just existing to move the plot along.
Oh, and my last thing that I don’t really understand is how she realizes at the end of the season that she doesn’t want to go into fashion. If that isn’t fulfilling her, then what happens in the future too then make her still go into fashion merchandising by the movie? Obviously, this is something that they can address and can be a story point in future seasons from her high school time to her college time they can answer this question, but it did feel kind of out of place knowing where she ends up and seeing how venomously she wanted to move away from the fashion stuff in the end of the season.
I spent a lot of this message talking about what I didn’t like but I genuinely really do love this show. I think Lexi is incredible. I’m really excited to watch the world build out. I wanna learn more about Kimberly. I adore Liz. I love Liz‘s mom. I want to know more about Dustin and I want more complexity for Miles. I wanna know more about Ella‘s friends in Los Angeles. I love the soundtrack. I love the way they move in legally blonde and 90s lower and jokes without making them to oblivious I think June Diane Raphael is an absolute scene stealer I love the murder mystery. Plot was really fun. They’re just a lot of really good things here that I think can be fine. Tuned in future seasons.
I voice noted this entire message because I knew that I had a lot to say so I’m sure that it’s riddled with typos I apologize and it’s probably a little rainy, but I wanted to get out my full thoughts without my finger is getting tired.
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