Watching Monday

[brigdh]

I didn't watch any Parks & Rec last week! I don't remember why; I think I might have been trying to get some extra reading done, in preparation for Yuletide and the Ben January book-club.

I did watch the first two episodes of American Horror Story: Freak Show which I'm not particularly enjoying, so I don't think I'm going to watch more of (though my girlfriend likes, so she'll probably continue watching). It's certainly not as bad as it could be, given the topic, but eh. Not for me.

Sleepy Hollow
2.04
I totally approve of ridiculous fairy-tale plots just as much as ridiculous Armageddon plots or ridiculous American Revolution plots, so I love the use of the Pied Piper (which is a really weird fairy-tale on its own, now that I think about it. What the hell is that story even about? Pay your rat-catchers or they'll steal your children and entomb them forever in a mountain, the end? People in the Middle Ages were high as fuck y'all) and hope they continue. Actually, I also want some modern-day American urban legends to introduce Crane too: now that he can drive, he can pick up a mysterious vanishing hitchhiker! Slenderman! Bloody Mary!

I also like this season's dedication to mother themes so far. It's great to focus on Abbie and Jenny's trauma, after last season's overarching plot was mostly about Crane's family. You also so rarely see mother/daughter relationships focused on in genre TV shows or movies, so I really appreciate that. And a lot of people have mentioned this, but I also love that this week's mother was willing to sacrifice her biological child to protect her adoptive children, rather than treating one as more "real". And as this show is often so good at, I liked that two of the adopted kids were of color (I know cross-racial adoptions are controversial, but so is the focus on white boys as the ideal adoptive child, so between the two problems I'd personally prefer the show to go the way it did).

I loved Irving's Matrix-Armageddon vision (and he was way hot in that black tank-top), and his Bible bursting into flames. And this was a very shippy episode; Abbie wiping the coffee foam off of Crane's face was too amazing, as was their flirting (it was totally flirting!) about his driving.

Comments

[somebraveapollo.livejournal.com]

Know what my favourite thing is about this episode though? Like, we got Orlando in a tank top in the apocalypse; we got Abbie and Crane making in the café with the whipped cream, BUT what delighted me even more than these things was the fact that fairytale AUs are suddenly an option. I mean, they were always an option, but they just didn't occur to me?

BUT NOW I CAN'T STOP THINKING OF THE POSSIBILITIES. Abbie and Jenny as Hansel and Gretel! Crane as Rapunzel! Katrina/Andy as Beauty and the Beast! Irving as the princess in Rumplstiltskin. CINDERELLA AU SOMEHOW, I DON'T KNOW HOW YET.

[somebraveapollo.livejournal.com]

Also, AHS is always creepy, but this season is EXTRA-SPECIAL TERRIFYING CREEPY.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yessss, I want all the fairy tale AUs. Abbie and Jenny were in foster care! Evil stepsisters and stepmothers really seem to lend themselves to that! (hmmm, I don't know who should be the prince. Or the fairy godmother, though Katrina can do spells. In some versions it's the dead mom helping out instead of a fairy, which would also be great).

Abbie and Jenny as Hansel and Gretel!
This is unbelievably PERFECT and I want it.

AHS is always creepy, but this season is EXTRA-SPECIAL TERRIFYING CREEPY.
For the clowns or the freak show? Or just in general?

[somebraveapollo.livejournal.com]

Abbie is the prince-iest of all the characters with her Love Of Justice and well-timed day-saving manouvers. (and Crane the princessiest, like, he could probably talk to chipmunks if he tried). Katrina might make an excellent fairy godmother. WITH THE WORLD'S CREEPIEST DOLLS. Like, I suddenly want Abbie/Crane kidfic where Jeremy is Maleficent but Katrina is the good fairy who counteracts his spell.

For the clowns or the freak show? Or just in general?
For the freak show. Like, I have a fairly high tolerance for the Creepy Carnevals Look At All The Disabled People trope - I was fine with the ~menagerie~ part in ADWD, I was fine with that one Amanda Palmer album, whatever. But something about the way it's framed in the promos for this - like, this attempt at progressiveness, all about ~~~~humanizing~~~~ the performers, as though they're not human to begin with?? IS SO CREEPY AND MAKES MY SKIN CRAWL AUGH.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

But Crane definitely, absolutely has to be Sleeping Beauty! I mean, it's nearly canon. Abbie cutting through the thorns to kiss him is very good, also.

I haven't seen any of the extraneous materials, but that does sound awful. It was bothering me, in the show itself, the heavy emphasis on "the freakshow is a metaphor for fame"! Which, like, is fine when it's "the witches are a metaphor for X!" or "the haunted house is a metaphor for Y!", but "this group of people is a metaphor for this other group of people" doesn't work when both groups are actually real people. It actually seems less humanizing than just going "here's the story of a freakshow ooooo creepy", because this way it's really about 'normal' people. (Also, sigh, these terms - freak and normal - but that's the dichotomy the show is based on. Like, having a lot of tattoos isn't a disability.)

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

(No comment on the episode, for the same reason that I've tried several times to post this comment already.)

Europe was tripping balls during the witch trials because ergot poisoning, according to this one thing I read. Also, I've always wondered if the Pied Piper and the Dancing Plague were related.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

(Ugh, is LJ being weird?)

Oh, I like that theory. I've also heard speculation that the Pied Piper is connected to the Children's Crusade or a local epidemic, but no one seems to know for sure. It's so oddly specific for a myth.

Ergot poisoning sounds like a completely reasonable explanation for the Middle Ages.

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

(No, just my internet in general.)