The statement in the newest episode was very distinctly a combination of two Fears: The Dark obviously in the form of the increasingly isolated pier but also The Stranger, maaaybe spiral in the form of the fucked up arcade and the dude's insistence that everything was fine
We don't usually have overlapping manifestations like that (though there was flesh and lonely in the last season now that I think of of, and corruption/end) but it's got me thinking...
We know tmagp world runs on some kind of alchemy...but is it the transmutation of one fear into another?
I know we've fully graduated from the idea that there's any hard and fast barriers between the fears but it's interesting to me that Mr. Bonzo seems to blatantly flout traditional categorization:
In his original appearance in Saturday Night is specifically a BURIED statement, with the dungeon motif, the "you've been berried" gag, and Nigel Dickerson's life being swallowed up by Bonzo's fame until he's trapped living with his own monstrous creation.
There's also a flavor of STRANGER involved, both with Bonzo's general clownish weirdness, the mascot-suited killer, and Gwen's revulsion that the "suit" is made out of skin. I think it's more than reasonable for an avatar to channel two distinct but intersecting flavors of fear, or take elements from another as we've seen with Mike Crewe
However, the second episode Getting Off was distinctly SLAUGHTER flavoured: the music, gore and dismemberment, helplessness infront of violence, all elements that were mostly absent from the original statement ( though I could accept an argument for the crewmembers getting injured wearing the suit and the eventual serial killer). Unless the victims are still alive inside mashed up inside Bonzo's belly, he didn't inflict the sort of fear that we'd expect from a BURIED or STRANGER avatar, and thus wasn't feeding those entities.
What this hints to me is that the entities of the Protocol world are less territorial than the ones back in Archives, less concerned with staking out particular victims and harvesting their particular kinds of fear as a means of accruing power. What this means for greater entity/avatar level territorial diplomacy like we saw in TMA I have no idea, but it speaks of a very different world state/way how the entities work.
Chewing on my enclosure thinking about how the TMP universe is set up and what the FUCK this world's version of the entities are/when the TMA entities crossed over.
That whole encounter with Newton was obviously a manifestation of greater alchemy, but was it also an olde timey manifestation of the stranger, given how WRONG the statement giver found everything (given all his talk about good reason, and being unnerved about the dog escaping it's place in the godly hierarchy) ?
Oscar Jarrett's tattoos are likewise giving me all sorts of things to think about.
The sun symbol burning a guy alive makes sense on the surface but if you know anything about alchemy you'd know that the symbol of the sun (specifically the one with the dot in the middle) is a symbol of gold, NOT the process of calcination. I'm mostly discounting desolation because despite the burning the iconography just feels wrong.
The ship tattoo is free of obvious alchemical symbols and seems almost...infectious, making the groundworks boss obsessed and reverent just by looking at it, while disappearing the coroner and possibly the government contact aswell. The subject matter is very entity-ish (flip a coin for vast or buried, I'm leaning the latter for how often "closer" is mentioned) but that raises the question of WHEN the TMA entities crossed over into the TMP-verse.
These tattoos are almost like Leitner books, carrying power that threatens to devour most, but empowers those individuals who happen to align with them (the artist and the paintbrush). Difference being that Leitner didn't WRITE anything in his library, and Oscar Jarrett (and now inksoul) seems to be handing out different flavors of horror to each individual.
Okay, drawing a strong line between today's statement with the hunger/isolation booth and the one involving the rest stop diner. Both even had the person losing fingers. With the former being lonely/buried and the latter being lonely/flesh. Isolation & deprivation is now definitely a *thing*
Stepping away from the entities for a moment it's interesting that we're looking at a group of people attempting to actively subject folks to the process. The tmagp version of the institute talked about catalysts and subjects. But what are we trying to make?
Brief thoughts on TMP 1x03 behind the cut. Warning: it's not gushing.
There were lots of reasons to dislike tonight's episode. The pacing was weird. The over the top sitcom music they always use was more over the top than usual (seriously, show, stop that. I don't need you to tell me when things are funny. That's what my brain is for). They tried to shove way too much into one 20 minute episode, which ended up shortchanging every plotline. I don't know what they were trying to do with the love triangle but I'm going to just ignore it and wait to see what they do next, like I did last year with Dr. L.
Folks generally seem to dislike it for one of two reasons:
(1) Danny was being a dick. Which, of course he was. Danny's kind of a dick. It's one of my favorite things about him. For more thoughts see here. He's always been notoriously weird about his privacy and his space. So I was fine with that storyline, although ideally I would've had him pick up on her annoyance a little earlier and had it resolved in a less cliched manner.
I do have to say, I think they've generally made him a little happier, a little faster to smile this season. Which is nice to see.
(2) Both the tax/marriage failures being wildly out of character and unrealistic. Which is completely true. I don't mind ridiculous plots and tropes (see IBB, all Danny dancing scenes ever, FMYI, etc) but they should play to who the characters are, not dumb them down. The tax thing on Mindy's end was absurd, but at least sort of in line with other forms of absurdity we've seen from her character, but no way did anal, law-abiding Danny fail to legally end his marriage. Not buying it.
But, my greatest complaint was, Danny's married and we don't get any angst over this? No mopey conversations about why he had a hard time officially ending his marriage? No reference to the huge secrets blow-out in the premiere? All we get is one sort of passive-aggressive fight and Danny doing the worst fake-crying since Dawson's Creek over a damned Yankees chair? C'mon. (On the plus side, I guess the Mets/Yankees debate is officially resolved).
Now I'm going to go re-watch Be Cool, since my insatiable need for sad Danny was not satisfied.
Wow, what can I say about The Mindy Project season finale?
It was awesome!
I re-watched it 3 times and I re-watched the best scenes a million times already. I feel I could never stop doing that!
I really think it's a mini-sized version of a great rom-com movie.
The directing style was engaging and so cinematic, the music was simply perfect...
Chris Messina's acting performance was so good, so brilliant; and Mindy Kaling was great as well, I think she glows when she acts with him.
She's so convincing in dramatic scenes as well, she's getting better and better.
My heart is filled with joy right now, and I think that's what sitcoms should be for.
It's not simply about having my otp together, it's how all this has been built, and shown and played out.
I think it was real, funny and touching at the same time... (just like another show used to be a looooong time ago).
The running scene starts so "dramatically" and "seriously" but then it gets funnier and funnier and I couldn't stop laughing! It was a hilarious moment :)
Then we got that beautiful cinematic moment when "Drive" starts playing and Danny makes "that" face.
It's my favorite expression of his so far, he looks so astonished, overwhelmed, breathless, relieved, happy...
... and that smile before going towards Mindy... *dies all over again*
It was a perfect scene, it's already a piece of TV history, in my opinion.
My thoughts about TMP episode Be Cool and about Danny and Mindy situation...
I haven't been able to post this earlier, but I want to share my thoughts about The Mindy Project and how the writers are dealing Mindy and Danny situation.
Seeing them so happy together, looking at him making pancakes for her, all those smiles, dating in secret... it was very funny and sweet and sexy and I adored all that.
The breakup was painful to watch but I need to say this out loud:
this is how you handle a break up!
It didn't feel weird or a recton or out of character, it didn't come out of the blue.
I don't think they're both ready for each other, because if they don't solve their issues and try to evolve first, a relationship between them is doomed from the beginning, imho.
It was heartbreaking, watching Danny with tears in his eyes, his breaking voice telling Mindy he has to have her in his life.
And I think that Mindy did a great job as well, her performance was awesome and we saw a different side of her.
It's not the first time we've seen her in pain after a breakup, but this time is so different. I felt the despair in her voice and in her teary eyes. It was such an emotional scene, it was beautiful and painful at the same time.
But that scene didn't leave me bitter, it didn't make me angry and I was able to watch it several times, because it was truly touching.
I know this is not the end, so I'm not so worried about their future. Probably this helps.
But God, this felt so different than Nick and Jess break up...
I am still so pissed about Nick and Jess because it didn't feel real to me. And the reason of this decision didn't seem enough to me.
If you love someone, you try to meet half way, you try to work things out before giving up.
But Ness' situation is very complicated and I think this is not the moment to talk about it, i don't want to write a novel instead of a blog post :P
Btw, what I explained above is why I'm liking The Mindy Project more and more and more, because Mindy Kaling and the other writers were able to look at the show, discard what wasn't working and focus on the best parts.
They know the comedy genre and tropes so well, but they also know and understand their viewers and I feel that they totally respect them (us), they gave us a decent reasonable "closure" in Be Cool, they didn't left us smashed and confused.
They let us understand why they made that choice and they did it in such a proper way, an organic way...
And personally, I understood it and and it didn't completely ruin my enjoyment regarding the show.
I'm pissed about NG because I haven't been able to watch Mars Landing episode twice, because the whole situation made me angry and it felt so pointless.
And if I watch it again, I can't help being bitter and angry and this is the worst because I am not able to enjoy the show as I was before.
I'm also pissed about all the things that are happening in the other shows I'm watching (except for Ouat), because my otps are having a very hard time...
I can't wait to see next TMP episode and right now it's the show I am most excited about, along with Ouat (and maybe Community, but you never know what to expect there).
If you're still reading this, thank you very much for your attention!
I hope you like my ideas and if you want to talk to me and comment about TMP episodes, I'm here :)
