yummy shows for my autism part 1
A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
You shall receive: a campy Gothic detective noir with tonnes of lore to unpack, a sad boy narrator, too many orphans and Neil Patrick Harris in the only role I (PERSONALLY IN MY OPINION) can accept him in
Plot: Violet, Klaus and Sunny are three rich kids with extraordinary talents in mechanics, reading and biting things respectively. Their parents die in a fire and, for some reason, Mr Poe (an idiot banker who is the worst character, i hate him, he's serving the opposite of cunt, his cunt is dead, all that's left is phlegm) is left in charge of finding them a guardian, he leaves them with a terrible actor named Count Olaf who forces them to do insane chores, abuses them and tries to marry Violet (she is 14). When they are finally taken out of his custody he stalks them and basically murders anyone who agrees to take them in. Meanwhile the narrator, Lemony Snicket, teaches us grammer, vocabulary and gives us some clues to the overarching story while providing some of the most epic lines of melancholic dialogue that I've heard in my life
Review: I love this show because it's dark, hilarious and treats it's intended child audience as intelligent beings who are capable of coming to terms with it's darker plot elements, understand and even work out it's mysteries. There's always a sense of something bigger, we're seeing one story from this dark and complicated world that is both familiar and foreign to us, many of the mysteries remain mysterious leaving plenty of space for theorists and fanon to do their wonderous deeds (As a chronic spectator of fandom I love to see y'all work <3). My main issues with this show come from it's comedy, though I enjoy Count Olaf as a character I find him quite cringeworthy sometimes; I also think some of the attempts to lighten the story for a Netflix audience cheapen the atmosphere especially when compared to the books it's based upon
Reasons to watch:
• Tonnes of extra material if you're willing to read (the story in the books is slightly different in places, there's a prequel series and some extras that give more information about the mysteries and characters while not removing the juicy open ended vibe of the original books).
• it's a little fruity, queer coded characters are here including Rhys Darby being his adorable self and an androgynous icon as one of our villains henchmen. Neil Patrick Harris also brings some wonderful camp energy as Count Olaf, coming of as hilarious, scary and tragic all at once
• everyone is autistic, don't ask me how, I just know. the autism is in the sauce
• Teaching kids to have a healthy distrust of authority ! adults are shitty, jaded and treat kids unfairly a lot of the time even if unintentionally, I just think it's pretty neat that this story acknowledges that, it respects kids and doesn't diminish their feelings and opinions while acknowledging that they should be protected
Additional Yap - I wish I grew up reading these books and I'm so glad it was adapted, this story is lowkey inspirational in this hellscape of growing illiteracy and loss of critical thought (no shade, i am also part of our fucked up system and can admit to being completely brainless 80% of the time) it's just nice to watch a show that doesn't pander or treat it's audience as below itself, it welcomes us to learn as our protagonists do, discover information for ourselves or just enjoy a horrid tale about death and child abuse if we so desire