Abigail Barnette's Blog, page 61

Big Damn Buffy Rewatch S03E07: “Revelations”

In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone hasn’t packed for the conference next week. She will also recap every episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer with an eye to the following themes:

Sex is the real villain of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe.
Giles is totally in love with Buffy.
Joyce is a fucking terrible parent.
Willow’s magic is utterly useless (this one won’t be an issue until season 2, when she gets a chance to become a witch)
Xander is a textbook Nice Guy.
The show isn’t as feminist as people claim.
All the monsters look like wieners.
If ambivalence to possible danger were an Olympic sport, Team Sunnydale would take the gold.
Angel is a dick.
Harmony is the strongest female character on the show.
Team sports are portrayed in an extremely negative light.
Some of this shit is racist as fuck.
Science and technology are not to be trusted.
Mental illness is stigmatized.
Only Willow can use a computer.
Buffy’s strength is flexible at the plot’s convenience.
Cheap laughs and desperate grabs at plot plausibility are made through Xenophobia.
Oz is the Anti-Xander
Spike is capable of love despite his lack of soul
Don’t freaking tell me the vampires don’t need to breathe because they’re constantly out of frickin’ breath.
The foreshadowing on this show is freaking amazing.
Smoking is evil.
Despite praise for its positive portrayal of non-straight sexualities, some of this shit is homophobic as fuck.
How do these kids know all these outdated references, anyway?
Technology is used inconsistently as per its convenience in the script.
Sunnydale residents are no longer shocked by supernatural attacks.
Casual rape dismissal/victim blaming a-go-go
Snyder believes Buffy is a demon or other evil entity.
The Scoobies kind of help turn Jonathan into a bad guy.
This show caters to the straight female gaze like whoa.
Sunnydale General is the worst hospital in the world.
Faith is hyper-sexualized needlessly.
Slut shame!

Have I missed any that were added in past recaps? Let me know in the comments.  Even though I might forget that you mentioned it. WARNING: Some people have mentioned they’re watching along with me, and that’s awesome, but I’ve seen the entire series already and I’ll probably mention things that happen in later seasons. So… you know, take that under consideration, if you’re a person who can’t enjoy something if you know future details about it. So, we’re at The Bronze, where Dingoes At My Baby are finishing up their nightly set. Xander and Willow are acting way too weird in their attempt to seem totally normal. They’re more obvious than the spies on AMC’s Turn (which is awesome, by the way, but totally obvious when they’re spying). They quickly turn the conversation about weird behavior to Buffy. They suspect she has a new boyfriend she’s not telling anybody about. When she shows up, they ask her:

Cordelia: “So, are you dating somebody or not?”

Buffy: “I wouldn’t use the word dating. But I am going out with someone. Tonight, as a matter of fact.”

Willow: “Really? Who?”

Then Faith steps up real close, throws her arm around Buffy and says:

Faith: “Yo, what’s up? Hey, time to motorvate.”

Buffy: “Really, we’re just good friends.”

And they leave together.

This, my friends, is the beginning of the Buffy/Faith queerbaiting: luring viewers in with a coy insinuation that a queer relationship might develop between two characters, without intending to ever follow through. It’s not just this one comment, but much of the Buffy/Faith relationship. This isn’t just a complaint that there aren’t enough LGBTQA+ characters in a show, or a complaint that a certain ship doesn’t become canon. It’s a serious problem in media that’s often passed off as true representation. So for the overall queerbaiting of the Buffy/Faith relationship, I’m giving this instance a #23, and I’ll point the rest out as we go along through the season.

The scene cuts to Buffy and Faith taking on cemetery vampires while Giles sits calmly by, reading. He even has a little styrofoam coffee cup. His job is pretty easy these days, what with the two Slayers. After Buffy and Faith finish off the vampires, they ask Giles what he thought of the fight. He doesn’t get a chance to answer before the female equivalent of himself–starch, buttoned-up, and English–appears to criticize them for their sloppy skills and the fact that they’re out too late on a school night. She’s Faith’s new Watcher, Gwendolyn Post.

After the opening titles, Faith tries to explain to Mrs. Post that she doesn’t need a Watcher, and that her Watchers end up dead, anyway. But it’s not up to Faith, it’s up to the Council. Post asks Giles where “the rest” of his books are, and he looks like someone just took his birthday cake and threw it on the ground.

Giles: “I can assure you, Mrs. Post, this is the finest occult reference collection–”

Post: “This side of the Atlantic, I’m sure.”

Post continues to lay into Giles about what books he has and doesn’t have, and really takes him down a peg. She also informs him that she’s not just there to watch Faith; the Council has sent Post to evaluate Gile’s performance as a Watcher, as well.

Now, I want to backtrack. They’re all in the library in this scene, and Giles says it’s the finest occult reference collection, right? So am I to understand that all of his Watcher books are just in the school library catalogue? What in the severe fuck is that about? Again, #8. Nobody in the school questions why there are these extremely archaic demon books on the shelves?!

Also, Giles is wearing his tie on the outside of his vest for some reason. Get your shit together, Giles.

Post says that a demon named Lagos is coming to town for the Glove of Myhnegon. The glove is buried in a cemetery in Sunnydale. Giles points out that there are twelve cemeteries in town, and I think this might be the first time the astoundingly huge number of cemeteries is brought up. Post goes on to further insinuate that Giles can’t do his job, utterly demoralizing him in front of the Slayers. When she leaves, Buffy suggests that they kill her. I agree.

In the next scene, there’s more half-naked tai chi with Angel, but this time, Buffy’s participating. It’s this slow, sexy thing, and they almost make out. Buffy realizes their mistake and leaves, but not before she tells him about Lagos. Angel appears to know who Lagos is. He tells Buffy to be careful. So that’s probably not a good sign

At the library, Giles is freaking out. He can’t find anything about Lagos, and he’s snapping at Willow and Xander. Not in his usual dry, under his breath way. He’s straight up yelling and bossing them around. Willow and Xander try to research, but they’re exhausted and have done way too much reading. Which of course leads to Xander and Willow making out. But this time they get caught. By Giles. Who tells them that they can stop studying and go home, because he found out which crypt it’s in. And let me tell you, Giles is a master of the I’m-not-mad-I’m-just-disappointed act. He doesn’t even address what he saw, which only makes it worse. Willow and Xander are guilty and mortified. As they should be.

Buffy and Faith are patrolling in town, and Faith is telling Buffy all about how guys aren’t trustworthy. She wants to know what it’s like to have sex with a vampire, because the only thing Faith is ever given to talk about is sex (#32). She volunteers to take the last cemetery so Buffy can go home, and so she can score extra points with the new, stuck-up Watcher.

And what does Faith find in the cemetery? A demon rifling through a tomb, looking for something. And he’s so pissed that he can’t find it, he doesn’t even bother to kill her. But he’s in the wrong cemetery, because this one is Shady Grove, and the Glove of Myhnegon is in a tomb in Restfield.

I wonder if all the cemeteries in Sunnydale are given canon names. We should keep track of that. I mean, I’ll definitely lose track, but I should at least pretend I’m going to try. If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing a little bit, before abandoning it.

Meanwhile, over at Restfield, Xander is nervously creeping around the headstones.

Xander: “Hey Giles, here’s a nifty idea. Why don’t I alleviate my guilt by going out and getting myself really, really killed?”

Xander approaches the tomb and sees someone leaving. It’s Angel. Oh shit, Xander has seen Angel.

For confirmation, Xander follows him back to the mansion, where he sees Angel and Buffy making out. Oh shit, everything is falling right to damn apart.

Buffy and Angel continue to make out after the commercial break, and Buffy is like, what the hell are we doing, this turned out so not good last time. Before she can run off, Angel is like, hey, by the way, I’ve got the Glove of Myhnegon. You’d think that would be the first thing he told her when she showed up, but I guess not. He warns her that once the Glove is on, it can never been taken off, so she tells Angel to keep it for now, and that Giles will be happy when he finds out they’ve got it.

Will he though, Buffy? Will he be happy when he finds out that Angel is alive? Because like, my gut is telling me that you’re really underestimating the level of enthusiasm anybody you know would have upon learning that Angel is back.

At Giles’s apartment, he’s finally found a description of the Glove of Myhnegon in one of his books, and, like a conservative arguing on Facebook, Post tries to discredit the source of the facts.

Post: “The pictures are fun to look at, Mr. Giles, but one really ought to read the nice words, as well.”

Okay, my favorite part of this scene is, as she’s delivering this line, you hear a tea kettle starting to scream in the background. It so perfectly illustrates Giles’s frustration. Post notices this, and decides that another lecture is in order, because she cannot read the room. As she carefully takes the tea bag out of her cup and replaces it with a tea ball and her own tea from her purse (another absolutely brilliant touch), she talks about letting little things slip. He tells her that he has complete control of Buffy, which is the perfect time for Xander to burst through the door and announce that they have a big problem with Buffy.

The next day at school, Buffy comes to the library and is like, yeah, I got the Glove, mission accomplished. But everyone looks real, real super not happy with her. Giles tells her to take a seat, and calls her out for lying to all of them. Willow tries to run the confrontation like an intervention, which is hilarious now that How I Met Your Mother aired and Alyson Hannigan did all those interventions on there. She tells everyone to make “I statements”, which Cordelia is obviously perfect at:

Cordelia: “Here’s one. I feel worried. About me! Last time around, Angel barely laid a hand on Buffy. He was way more interested in killing her friends.”

Good point, Cordelia. Buffy has been acting like Angel’s return only affects her, when in reality, she’s putting her friends in danger, without even letting them know. Buffy insists that she and Angel aren’t together, so there’s no chance of him turning evil by way of orgasm. But Oz, who’s usually so quiet during moments of criticism, points out that she was kissing Angel. Buffy is furious with Xander for spying on her, but nobody is having it. She insists that kissing Angel was an accident that will never happen again.

Buffy: “I would never put you in any danger. If I thought for a second that Angel was going to hurt anyone–”

Xander: “You would stop him. Like you did last time with Ms. Calendar.”

Harsh, but true. Buffy had a chance to kill Angel when he went bad, but she never followed through. She had more than one chance, and because she loved him, she couldn’t do what should have been done before the situation escalated. This resulted in not only the deaths of Ms. Calendar and her uncle, as well as various other innocent people, but Willow ended up in a coma and Giles was kidnapped and tortured. I’m usually on Buffy’s side, and I can see why it was difficult for her to take on Angel. But the rest of the Scooby Gang is right: when it comes to Angel, Buffy isn’t smart and cannot protect them.

As the conversation devolves into accusations, Giles cuts them all off and sends them back to their classes. Buffy follows Giles to his office and thanks him for bailing her out of the intervention, but Giles is also not having any of her bullshit:

Giles: “Be quiet. I won’t remind you that the fate of the world often lies with the Slayer. What would be the point? Nor shall I remind you that you’ve jeopardized the lives of all that you hold dear by harboring a known murderer. But sadly, I must remind you that Angel tortured me…for hours…for pleasure. You should have told me he was alive. You didn’t. You have no respect for me or the job I perform.”

At least this makes Buffy realize that she’s maybe done something wrong. It’s really difficult for me, and probably most viewers, to see Buffy acting so selfishly. And the worst part is, at this point, we don’t know if Angel will hurt anyone again or not. It’s hard to understand why Buffy trusts him, when the rest of us can’t. In this respect, the story is making us side with Buffy’s friends when they’re saying stuff she doesn’t want to hear, and it’s why this show is way more complex than it gets credit for.

At Faith’s hotel room, Post shows up to try and mend fences. She tells Faith that she can make her into a better Slayer, a Spartan warrior, etc. Faith just has to trust her. And how does Post win this trust? By telling Faith that Giles isn’t a very good Watcher, and mentioning the “secret meeting” the Scoobies had without Faith. And of course Faith knows nothing about this, and feels left out, which is the perfect opportunity for Post to get closer to her.

Buffy meets Willow at her locker and finds that Willow is a lot more forgiving than one would expect.

Willow: “You were scared, you kept a secret, you know? It’s okay. I mean, secrets aren’t bad. You know, they’re normal. They’re better than normal. They’re good. Secrets are good. Must be a reason why we keep them, right?”

Then she immediately changes the subject. So, Willow is using her guilt over creeping around with Xander as a reason to rationalize and support Buffy’s behavior. Ah, nothing like a tall, cool glass of enabling.

Later, at the Bronze, Xander is playing pool when Faith approaches him. She thinks the Scoobies were talking behind her back about the Glove, but Xander is pissed, so he tells her that Angel is alive and has the Glove. He tells her that Buffy not only knew Angel was alive, but gave him the Glove. Faith is as pissed off as Xander, and heads off to slay Angel, Xander in tow. Because he wants to watch.

So, in the past, I believed that Xander’s hatred of Angel was primarily motivated by jealousy. For a long time, it was. But I firmly believe that at this point, it has nothing to do with wanting to nail Buffy. Being stalked by a dangerous person is no fun.

Giles calls Post to his office to tell her about the Glove. First, though, he says something that strikes me as odd. He asks Post if Faith is her first Slayer, like he can spot a newbie. Is Buffy not Giles’s first Slayer? What happened to the other one? Why isn’t she ever mentioned?

Anyway, Giles tells Post exactly where the Glove of Myhnegon is. Like, he even gives her the street name. She’s all, we need to go get it and re-hide it, but Giles is like, I totally have the answer here, let’s destroy it with this fire spell thing I figured out. And then Post knocks him out. Because why wouldn’t she?

After the commercial break, Buffy and Willow are waiting to ambush Lagos, and talking about how hard it is to keep secrets. Willow finally hits a wall with all the guilt stuff, and she’s about to confess to sneaking around with Xander, but Lagos shows up and interrupts. He and Buffy fight, she decapitates him, and Willow makes up a stupid lie about what her secret was. They head off to tell Giles that Lagos is taken care of.

Faith and Xander go to the library to check out some weapons, and while they’re there, they hear Giles groaning in pain. Like Giles often does. They find him unconscious on the ground, and Faith instantly blames Angel. Xander argues that it’s not Angel’s style, and there are no bite marks. He calls 911 and tells Faith that if they leave, Giles could die. But she’s hellbent on killing Angel, and leaves Xander to deal with Giles on his own.

At the mansion, Angel is doing the spell to destroy the Glove. Now…hang on a second. How does Angel know how to do this? I can’t remember if it’s ever addressed. Giles didn’t go see him and tell him how to do it, and it’s apparently some arcane thing. Are we just going to fill in that plot hole ourselves then? Why do we have to do all the work?

Buffy arrives at the library and finds the EMTs taking Giles away. He tells her to destroy the Glove with living flame, but they have to rush him out because this time, it’s a life or death kind of head injury. Buffy asks Xander what happened, and even though he knows Angel didn’t do it, he blames it on him. He tells Buffy that Faith is going after Angel, and Buffy rushes off to save him.

At the mansion, Angel has just summoned up the living flame when Post arrives. She says Giles sent her to help destroy the glove, and Angel looks not-at-all surprised that Giles knows he’s alive. So, did Giles give him the spell or what? Is this something Angel just knows how to do and has the ingredients to do it? Post asks where the glove is, and once Angel tells her, she knocks him out. Post is trying to break into the trunk that allegedly contains the Glove when Angel gets up, vamped out to the nines. Post didn’t realize that he was a vampire, but now that she knows, she’s ready to fight to the death with a broken shovel handle. Let me tell you a tale, dear reader: Post isn’t from England. She’s from a small hick town like mine, because I know for a fact that I’ve threatened somebody with a broken shovel handle in fight. That’s what my people do. It’s our thing.

Angel and Post are fighting when Faith shows up. Remember, her last Watcher was murdered right in front of her. So this is high stakes for her.

Even in this time of stress.

She’s about to kill Angel when Buffy arrives and stops her. So now we have a real fight going on, okay? We’ve got Faith, who doesn’t know her Watcher is evil, fighting Angel, who doesn’t know she isn’t evil, and Buffy fighting Faith. Meanwhile nobody is keeping tabs on Post, which is unfortunate, because Willow and Xander have finally figured out what the Glove does, and they’re booking it over to the mansion.

While Faith and Buffy fight, Xander and Willow arrive. Post tells them the Glove is in the trunk and they have to get to it. She sends Xander to help Faith, then knocks Willow out with the Glove. Then Post puts the damn thing on, says a spell, and starts conjuring shit. The Slayers stop beating up on each other, discovering too late that they’ve been fighting the wrong enemy all along. Then, in what has to be the cruelest blow, Post says:

Post: “Faith. A word of advice. You’re an idiot.”

Man, really think about this. Faith’s last Watcher died. She’s spent all the time in between then and now trying not to get close to people. She starts to get close to the Scoobies, only to have Post tell her she’s being left out. So she trusts Post instead, and then she turns on her. No wonder Faith is so easily manipulated by The Mayor later in the season.

Post uses the glove to shoot lightning all over the place, and Faith runs out to distract her. As Post boasts about how she has all the power and nobody can stop her, Buffy hurls a piece of glass and cuts her whole damn arm off.  You know, since the Glove of Myhnegon can’t be removed. By the way, the consequences of removal? Are pretty dire:

After she burns up and disappears, the Glove releases her severed arm.

At school, Oz, Willow, Xander, and Cordelia talk about how the Glove is gone and maybe Angel isn’t so bad, after all. Buffy walks in on their conversation, and she promises them that Angel isn’t her boyfriend. She wants to know if they’re all cool, and they are. Even Giles, who has a bandage on his head and a black eye. He tells them that Gwendolyn Post used to be a Watcher, but she was kicked out for using dark magic. He also makes mention of a memo from the Council about it, and it sounds like he never got it.

Okay, this is yet another part of the really upsetting and nonsensical part of this season’s plot. As I have pointed out before: Giles is the Watcher to the only Slayer on the planet. The only one. Which doesn’t make sense at all, but that’s too big a problem to deal with right now. The problem here is, he’s the last person to know anything. They didn’t send him information that a Watcher went rogue? They don’t send him the books he needs to have whatever would be a better library? He’s not invited on the Watchers’ retreat? Shouldn’t Giles, the guy who takes care of the actual Slayer, play a more important role in the organization?

It would be one thing if the Council wasn’t dedicated for and built around the Slayer. If they were an ancient governing body over all things paranormal. If the Slayer was just a small part of their puzzle. But all they do is train potential Slayers. That’s their entire job. And the one guy they send in to do the actual Watcher-ing? They don’t even bother to keep him up-to-date on shit like “Um, btw, there’s a rogue Watcher running around doing dark magic.”

You know, on second thought, maybe they were just relieved that the rogue Watcher running around doing dark magic wasn’t Giles.

Buffy goes to Faith’s hotel to apologize for what happened, especially the lying about Angel thing. She tells Faith that’s not on her own, but Faith rejects her offer of Slayer friendship. I mean, it makes sense, since Faith has been through so much and lost so many people. She just finally opened up and trusted someone and BAM it happened again. Buffy leaves, and the episode closes on Faith sitting alone in her hotel room.

I like this one. It’s pretty straight-forward and doesn’t have much stuff in it that would make me go, “mehhhhh.” At the same time, it’s not one of my favorites, because it’s hard to see Buffy hurt the people around her. Still, it’s a lot better than seeing Willow and Xander hurt the people around them. That’s up next.

True Blood Tuesday S01E08 “Fourth Man In The Fire”

With special guest star Bronwyn Green texting me.

Download here and start it when the HBO sound and logo go away.

New hat, book journaling, and thank you!

Hey everybody! You may have already seen this, but here’s a video I did about my book journal, the super-hero origin story of my new hat (not really) and some thank yous for the cool stuff you guys did for my birthday. Since I never realized how incredibly awful the automatic CC on YouTube is, I did the CC on this one. You’ll get every “um,” “uh,” “so,” “you know,” and “anyway,” and get to suffer along with everyone else! Whee!

 

Jenny Reads Fifty Shades Of Midnight Sun: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 or “I would like to move along, but nothing is actually moving along here.”

Stephenie Meyer has announced that she’ll be releasing a new novel, a thriller called The Chemist. So I guess keep a look out for The Botanist, an erotic thriller from E.L. James.

Unrelated, I apologize for the delay on this recap. I recently got my driver’s license and I’ve found that all those people who drove you around when you didn’t have a license? They want you to drive them places now. Fancy that. Also, I’ve been shirking at my job a little bit to enjoy my new freedom. It was a lot easier to stick to my schedule when I wasn’t able to leave the village, anyway. The day after I got my license, I couldn’t figure out a reason to drive somewhere, so I took my dogs to McDonald’s.

Anyway, the novelty is starting to fade on the whole “putting pants on and going outside of the house” thing, so I plan to return to responsible workingness.

Onto the recap!

Maybe it’s because I’m from Michigan. Maybe it’s because I’m angry on behalf of people crushed into poverty under the grinding wheels of racism, government neglect, and corporate corruption. Maybe I just fucking hate this book. But when E.L. James starts the chapter with:

The thought of siting the electronics plant in Detroit is depressing.

I get this red hot ball of fury in my chest and I have to get up and walk away from the computer.

I loathe Detroit; it holds nothing but bad memories for me.

It holds bad memories for a lot of people. Maybe writers and, hell, just anyfuckingbody who wants to talk shit about Detroit can actually read the history of the city. Maybe they can learn how redlining, white flight, and industry decline led to the city becoming the arson and murder capitol of the world. Maybe they can imagine living in a city where, during the 1980′s, the week before Halloween every year could mean as many as eight hundred homes and businesses burning. Maybe they can learn about citizens becoming vigilantes in an attempt to chase out drug dealers and gangs. And maybe they can have a shred of respect for the people who remain, even when some parts of the city are without water, without electricity. Where children are educated in schools where toxic black mold slicks the walls. Maybe they can stop reducing them to nothing but shorthand character’s toughness or tragedy.

If you’ve never actually been to Detroit, if you’ve never actually seen what it’s like there? Don’t fucking write about it.

What makes me extra mad about this? He goes on to think:

But Michigan is offering excellent tax incentives.

ARRRRRGH. Okay, his bad memories come from his mother living in extreme poverty, being hooked on drugs, and being forced into sex work rather than choosing it for herself, right? So…why not bring your company there so that the same thing won’t happen to another kid? Maybe bringing jobs and some economic boost to the local economy–which only emerged from an $18.5 billion bankruptcy two years ago–might be a worthwhile thing to do with your deeply philanthropical philosophy.

But you’re too busy trying to spread tablets around the world.

Anyway, an email comes in from Ana at two minutes after midnight. Which is great, because otherwise all this would still be in the last chapter. He wonders why she’s still awake–because people in their twenties never stay awake until midnight–and reads the email. She says she’s made a list of issues she has with some clauses in the contracts, so he pulls it up. And I laugh and laugh and laugh, because:

Mr. Christian Grey of 301 Escala, Seattle, WA 98889

and

Miss Anastasia Steele of 1114 SW Green Street, Apartment 7, Haven Heights, Vancouver, WA 98888

are their addresses.

Just to explain briefly for anyone who isn’t American (or who is American but doesn’t send any mail), our address format doesn’t go:

Name

Number Building, City, State Zip Code

or

Name

Number Street, Apartment number, Neighborhood, City, State Zip Code

The latter looks more like some UK addresses I’ve seen (although I’m not an expert), which would make sense considering E.L. James is from the UK. Ana’s address isn’t real (I checked, out of fear that she’d actually pulled someone’s address off google), so it’s not a huge deal, but I laughed my ass off at Christian’s. The Escala is an actual building. She could have looked up the address. I’m also pretty amused that she picked the 98889 zip code, which was also an easy look-up. It’s also kind of funny that for Ana’s zip, she just changed the nine to an eight. I assume that James thinks every city has one zip code, with the numbers going up by a single digit when you move one city over, which, if you didn’t live here, why not just assume that, right? Because it’s not like anyone (outside of postal enthusiasts, I suppose) really care about that. It’s an insignificant detail, but as an American, it still tickles me. Also, I’m amused that either no editor bothered to correct this, or that they possibly suggested a correction and it was just ignored.

James includes the entire contract, which spans from page 175 to page 186, and I’m so relieved that we can skip those pages. It makes my job a lot easier. Chedward addresses Ana’s points on a case by case basis:

2: Not sure why this is solely for MY benefit–i.e., to explore MY sensuality and limits. I’m sure I wouldn’t need a ten-page contract to do that! Surely this is for YOUR benefit.

Fair point well made, Miss Steele!

Someone, and I can’t remember who, said, “Fair point, well made” to me without a shred of irony, and I wanted to jump down a well and never return to the land of the humans. Dwelling with Mole People in their subterranean cities would be preferable to ever having to hear that phrase again.

4: As you are aware, you are my only sexual partner. I don’t take drugs, and I’ve not had any blood transfusions. I’m probably safe. What about you?

True story: you can get STDs and have them your whole life without knowing, if your mother had them. For example, if your mother had Hep B, you can be a carrier for the rest of your life. If your mom had HPV or herpes, you can get it from a vaginal birth. So no, virginity is not a guarantee that you don’t have an STD, and considering Chedward’s low opinion of his birth mother, the fact that his mother is a doctor, and his fastidious attention to the matter, you’d think he would know that.

Another fair point! And it dawns on me that this is the first time I haven’t had to consider the sexual history of a partner. Well, that’s one advantage of screwing a virgin.

Ah, yes. The myth that fewer partners = no STDs/STIs. That’s fun. See above.

8: I can terminate at any time if I don’t think you’re sticking to the agreed limits. Okay–I like this.

I hope it won’t come to that, but it wouldn’t be the first time if it did.

No shit? I bet you won’t let her talk to those former subs, huh?

12. I cannot commit every weekend. I do have a life, or will have. Perhaps three out of four?

And she’ll have the opportunity to socialize with other men? She’ll realize what she’s missing. I’m not sure about this.

So, he’s just confirmed exactly what critics of the books said all along. He intentionally isolates Ana so that she has no one around to point out how shitty he is to her. Remember when I said that, and people argued with me? “Oh, he’s protective of her, you don’t understand that because you’re a feminist/jealous/a hater/etc. But now we have proof, from the character’s own brain, that he doesn’t want her to be around other men because he doesn’t want her to have any frame of reference for what a real relationship would be like.

I never thought that my closest ally in bashing these books would be E.L. James herself, but here we have arrived.

Can I just make a note about the formatting here? I do not understand the choices they made with it. Ana’s notes on the contract are presented in plain text, slightly indented, while Christian’s lines are italicized. Why? Usually, you’d see this the other way around, with the text the character is reading printed in italics. The book is written in deep first person present tense. His thoughts here could easily be part of the narrative.

Ana’s list of objections and agreements goes on. One of the things I don’t get is where he demands that she sleep a certain amount of hours every night. How could he possibly tell? He doesn’t sleep with her, and she’ll only be with him two nights a week.

Anyway, he reads through them all:

Miss Steele has put some thought into this, more so than anyone else I’ve dealt with over this contract.

Now, wait a second. If this contract is so important, why would you enter into a Dom/sub relationship with someone who hadn’t put thought into it? Chedward’s inconsistency as a character continues to astonish me. He’s making Chedward in the original novels look positively reasonable by comparison.

They have another email exchange in which he tells her to stop emailing him, then she emails him, and he’s like, stop emailing me.

A few minutes pass and once I’m convinced she’s gone to bed, persuaded by my capital letters, I head into my bedroom. I take my laptop just in case she replies again.

You know what abusive people do? They set up contrary expectations so they can chastise you for not meeting them.

Christian decides that Ana has unrealistic ideas about what he wants for her. He sends her an email with the definition of the word “submissive” and tells her to keep it in mind when they meet to go over the contract. So basically, before she even agrees to be his sub, she has to sub during the negotiations, i.e., agree to do whatever he wants, regardless of her own desires.

Christian goes to sleep and dreams about his childhood–does this guy never have normal, naked at school dreams like everyone else?–and how he beat up his brother, etc. and he’s a monster, what have you. Then there’s a section break and Chedward is coming back from a run. Because he’s always coming back from a run. He immediately checks his email to see if she’s emailed him back (probably so he can scold her for doing so) and since she hasn’t, he decides that he’s going to forget about her for the day.

There’s another section break, and we’re at work with Chedward. Hey, here’s a writing tip. The brief paragraph that just gave us the email information? That could have been part of this next section. “I came in from my morning run hoping to find an email from Ana, but she hadn’t replied.” etc. Didn’t need to experience it in real time.

Actually, we don’t need to experience the next section in real time, either. Because it’s a video call with his assistant, Ros, about the tablet that better have some real fucking significance in this story, boy howdy, because we’ve certainly heard enough about it. Ros is frustrated with Christian’s absence in the office, and they discuss firing an employee. That’s it. It’s just some kind of boring proof that Christian does any work at all.

Nobody cares about the tablet. Get to the fuck contract already. If the tablet was part of a plot point that involved Ana, then it would need to be in the book. But this is (allegedly) a romance novel, right? If the heroine isn’t involved, if it doesn’t have any bearing on her whatsoever, I don’t give a shit.

Okay, here’s a for-example that does this right: Sustained by Emma Chase. The book is written in the hero’s first-person POV, just like with Grey. The hero is a lawyer, and we see two of the cases he’s working on. Both of the cases tie in directly with how the heroine changes the hero’s perspective on life and what’s important, and you see that going through the novel. He has clients who are shitty, shitty people, because at the beginning of the book, he’s a shitty, shitty person. Gradually, as he becomes less of a shitty person, we see him struggle more with representing these people, and we see his desire to be less shitty change the heroine’s life, too. That’s what makes the book so. fucking. good.

That doesn’t work with Grey. One, because the author doesn’t acknowledge, either in the text of the first series or in this book, or even in real life, that he’s not just a shitty hero, he’s the shittiest hero. And this business with the tablet? This isn’t influenced by Ana, and it doesn’t have any influence on Ana. We know this, because Christian Grey is a static character. He never changes. Making the tablet doesn’t change how he interacts with Ana, it doesn’t change their lives as a unit at all, so we don’t need to go on the journey of its creation.

What’s even more bizarre about this is that we’ve already seen in this book where James skips over dialogue between Ana and Christian, presumably to move the story along faster. So why add all this shit we don’t need? For example:

Over the past year, we’ve acquired three tech companies. Two are booming, surpassing all targets, and one is struggling despite Marco’s initial optimism. Lucas Woods heads it up; he’s turned out to be an idiot–all show, no substance. The money has gone to his head and he’s lost focus and squandered the lead his company once had in fiber optics. My gut says asset-strip the company, fire Woods, and merge their technology division into GEH.

But Ros thinks Lucas needs more time–and that we need time to plan if we’re going to liquidate and rebrand his company. If we do, it will involve expensive redundancies.

“I think Woods has had enough time to turn this around. He just won’t accept reality,” I say emphatically. “We need him gone, and I’d like Marco to estimate the cost of liquidating.”

“Marco wants to join us for this part of the call. I’ll get him to log in.”

That, by the way, is the line the section ends on. This whole thing is an elaborate set-up for a conference call we never see, with Marcos, a character we don’t know, and ends on what I assume is supposed to be a hook that will make us keep reading. This book is ridiculously long already, and this should have been trimmed down. I’m assuming it never saw developmental edits, though, because someone would have to be paid to do that, and why cut into the profits when these books are like printing money already?

After a break, Christian goes to the WSU campus for lunch with the president of the university.

As we approach the long driveway I can’t help looking out at all the students to see if I can spy Miss Steele. Alas, I don’t see her; she’s probably holed up in the library reading a classic.

Or, she could be not on campus at all, seeing as how she’s already finished college, and that’s what she was celebrating the night you took her to your hotel room and stripped her unconscious body.

There has been no reply to my last e-mail, but then she’s been working. Perhaps there’ll be something after lunch.

His mom calls and asks him to pick his sister up from the airport–wait, aren’t they super rich? Do they not have a driver? Can’t they afford a taxi, at least? Grace also asks about Ana, and Christian gives non-answers. Then he asks Taylor if he’ll see his daughter that weekend. And there’s another section break. So, it’s another pointless scene that could have easily been referred to, rather than lived through.

The next section begins:

I have managed to keep Anastasia Steele out of every waking thought today.

Unless he’s thinking about how he’s waiting for that email, and he hopes he’ll see her on campus, and he thinks of her reading in the library, etc.

During lunch there were times when I found myself imagining us in my playroom… What did she call it? The Red Room of Pain.

Oh, okay. The other thoughts he had of her weren’t sexual, so those don’t count. Because Ana isn’t a person. She’s a concept. She’s potential. So any thought of her beyond the contract is superfluous.

As Christian gets ready for yet. another. workout, Ana sends him an email. She counters his definition of “submissive” with the definition of “compromise”, and he replies by telling her that he’ll pick her up at seven the next day. Then, Elliot calls:

“Hey, hotshot. Kate’s asked me to hassle you about the move.”

“The move?”

“Kate and Ana, help moving, you dipshit.”

Again, aren’t the Greys rich? Isn’t Christian, specifically, the most rich person in the world or some bullshit? Can’t they hire movers to help Ana and Kate out?

And of course, Christian can’t possibly help, because he doesn’t want to give Ana “expectations.”

Ana emails him again and tells him that she would prefer to drive her own car and meet him somewhere. Which is reasonable, right? Because the last time she went anywhere with him, she ended up staying there until he decided he was ready to take her home. His response?

How irritating.

Yes, how irritating that someone would rather not commit to an entire evening at the mercy of your whims, especially when you’ve already made it clear that you consider her your submissive, regardless of her acceptance of the proposition.

He writes back:

Dear Miss Steele,

I refer to my e-mail dated May 24, 2011, sent at 1:27, and the definition contained therein.

Do you ever think you’ll be able to do what you’re told?

She isn’t his sub yet, but she should be submissive to him. Because that’s what he wants. Because his antisocial personality disorder leaves him unable to empathize with other people and see them as anything more than players in a grand show starring and directed by him. Ana has gone off script by not behaving exactly as he wishes her to behave.

Her response is slow, which does nothing for my mood.

Yet another example. She isn’t complying with what he thinks he’s owed.

She emails him again, with the subject line, “Intractable Men”, this time asking permission to drive.

Intractable? Me? Fuck. If our meeting goes as planned, her contrary behavior will be a thing of the past.

So, here’s something that bothered me throughout the first series, and I don’t know if I ever touched on it, because I couldn’t really put my finger on what was bothering me. With this line, I had a lightbulb moment. See, Christian doesn’t want to play a sexual game with Ana on the weekends. He doesn’t want a part-time sub. And he doesn’t want a full-time sub. He wants to fundamentally change Ana’s personality on every level. Not just in the playroom. Not just between them. He plans to make her into the woman he thinks she should be for him. He doesn’t want her to display “contrary behavior” ever again, because he doesn’t like it.

Now, changes like that? Would last beyond the temporary relationship he wants with her, if he chose to end it. But that doesn’t matter. Beyond servicing him, Ana has no other purpose in life as far as he can see. She exists to be the thing he wants her to be, and so what if she comes out the other side as a completely different person.

No fucking wonder Leila needs serious psychological intervention.

Christian tells Ana to meet him at the hotel bar, and she emails him back, signing it, “Ana x”.

And I’m rewarded with a kiss. Ignoring how that makes me feel, I let her know that she’s welcome. My mood has lifted as I head to the hotel gym.

She sent me a kiss…

At this point, we’re all meant to swoon, because him having feels over that little x is supposed to be enough for us to overlook the rest of his behavior.

That’s the end of the chapter. The chapter where literally nothing important happens and the story doesn’t move forward at fucking all. All this one really did was further expose how scary and dangerous Christian Grey is.

The Ghostbusters Reboot Is Better Than The Original

You read that headline and gasped, didn’t you? I know, it came as a surprise to me, too. When I sat down in the theater on Friday, I expected a cute movie with lots of nods to the originals that would call upon my 80′s kid nostalgia in an attempt to win me over. Ultimately, I was braced for disappointment. Ghostbusters is a classic, after all, and the Melissa McCarthy/Paul Feig dream team isn’t for everyone. Their humor is hit-or-miss for me, so I accepted the very real possibility that, despite how much I wanted to like the new Ghostbusters, my initial impression of the trailer and the entire reboot concept would prevail.

For two hours (that passed far too quickly), I was gleefully proven wrong at every turn. The movie is funny, with more gags per minute than its predecessors. The production design is more exciting, the ghosts scarier (though nothing will ever top the horror of Winston’s phantom train encounter in the sequel). Ghostbusters‘s plot is, in essence, the exact same as the plots of the first two movies: a ragtag band of heroes that nobody takes seriously must save Manhattan from a siege of ghosts, and also there’s some kind of vortex. But this installment adds much-needed fixes to holes audiences have politely overlooked for thirty-odd years.

For example, the lack of a clear antagonist. While all the movies are, at heart, about bustin’ some ghosts, the first two featured villains who were either long-dead (only in the second movie did the villain actually appear on screen) or pasty bureaucrats. The reboot gives us an antagonist who shares the bleak motivations of Ivo Shandor, architect of the doomed apartment building in the first movie. Rowan North, played with twitchy perfection by Neil Casey, is connecting the dots on ley lines around the city, intending to open a portal to a ghost dimension in the basement of the hotel where he works. Though Shandor’s goals and North’s are ostensibly the same, North proves a more effective–and memorable–villain because he actually gets screen time, and the audience sees his evil plan acted out, rather than half-sketched in some jail-cell banter. When the villain isn’t dead and off-screen, or on-screen but confined to a few scenes of evil leering from a painting, watching him get his comeuppance is far more satisfying.

The mechanics of ghostbusting make more sense in the reboot, as well. By the mid-point of the first film, the storage unit where the ‘busters dumped their ghosts was filling up, and it took two to four members of the team to capture each ghost. In the reboot, the aim is to contain just one, for proof of the paranormal. Extraneous ghosts are disposed of with new weapons like proton pistols, grenades, and even a hand-held wood chipper. Without the need to indefinitely contain each spirit, the action sequences are bigger and more dramatic. The extended climax is so reminiscent of a FPS video game that you can imagine where the save points would be.

Of course, no movie can stand on the strength of its action sequences alone. When the cast was first announced, it was tempting to assign the role of Egon to Kate McKinnon’s wild-haired Holtzmann, or to equate Leslie Jones’s Patty with Winston Zeddemore based on race alone. Though Holtzmann and Egon share a common archetype, McKinnon wisely doesn’t confine herself to mimicking Harold Ramis’s performance. While Ernie Hudson was relegated to the role of the guy who occasionally asked questions as a way to spur more spoken exposition from the white characters, Patty comes in with enthusiasm for the work and a speciality of her own: she’s a brilliant historian whose knowledge of the city is integral to the plot.

As for McCarthy and Kristen Wiig, they’re as far from Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd as could be. And that’s a good thing. Murray’s Peter Venkman was a creepy, wannabe-womanizer. Aykroyd’s Ray constantly proved himself a liability. It would have been easy enough to build a new Venkman from McCarthy’s weirdo performance in Bridesmaids, but the script doesn’t push her to act in such broad comedic strokes. Her short-tempered, long-suffering Abby is more interested in exterminating ghosts and getting a decent cup of soup than she is in romancing clients. As the ambitious but clueless Erin, Wiig shares straight man duties with McCarthy, and her buttoned-up attitude is as far from the affable Ray as could be.

Some have claimed that Chris Hemsworth’s sexy secretary Kevin is misandry on par with the misogyny of the originals, but while Wiig’s Erin has a cringe-worthy crush on him, no one ends up actually bedding him. Contrast that with Sigourney Weaver’s Dana Barrett, a smart, independent woman who is relentlessly pursued by Venkman and Rick Moranis’s Louis, and later ends up in bed with both of them (albeit possessed during her encounter with the latter). Even the ghosts in the original movie didn’t escape sexual objectification; in a scene that was always embarrassing to watch with your parents, one comely spook gives Ray a spectral blow job. You’d be hard pressed to find sex in the reboot at all, aside from Holtzmann’s aggressive charm. There are no clumsy romantic subplots, no Magic Mike-style ghosts. For all the allegations of estrogen ruining the franchise, there’s less romance in the female-led reboot than in the male-driven originals.

But don’t make the mistake of thinking the script spends its time trying to prove to us that girls can be ghostbusters. Apart from a few sly asides, the misogynist complaints from seething fanboys are largely ignored. Ghostbusters makes no attempt to win them back into the franchise, but it also doesn’t play up the rah-rah feminism angle it could have relied on. Before audiences even had a chance to see the movie, critical fans wanted to reduce the new characters to “just women”, while enthusiastic feminists exalted them as “yay, women!” Yet somehow, torn between these two extremes, Feig and co-writer Katie Dippold deliver fully fleshed-out characters with their own goals, motivations, and conflicts. These ladies aren’t anyone’s banner. They’re here to bust ghosts, crack wise, and build dangerous nuclear toys. Proving any kind of sociopolitical viewpoint is a fourth-place priority at best.

So, what about all the nods to the originals I was relying on to get me through what I expected would be just an okay-ish movie? There were tons of them! And they were all fun. At no time did they feel as though they were being used as a crutch; their presence felt more celebratory than nostalgic. Every time an original cast member appeared on screen, it felt as though we were being given their blessing to enjoy the movie, even though it isn’t the classic version. And I did enjoy it. I enjoyed it more than the originals.

So, what happens now? Now that I’ve seen the new Ghostbusters, found it funny and smart, and gotten myself in such a blasphemous position? Well, not much, really. I can still watch the original movies, and they’ll still fall flat for me in the same ways they’ve always fallen flat. But that’s never made me stop loving them before. My childhood is still intact. No one has confiscated my DVDs and banned me from ever watching the originals. Accepting that the new Ghostbusters is superior in several respects does nothing to tarnish the originals. In fact, it frees them. Now that we’ve seen that the originals could be improved upon, we can love them for what they are–flawed, dated, but ultimately fun comedies–and not the sacred cows of nerd culture they’ve become in the twenty-first century.

True Blood Tuesday S01E07 “Burning House Of Love”

So, there’s some stuff in here that gets way too true-to-life about child sexual abuse, so heads up. It’s in the scene where Suckeh is in the bathtub with Beel. There’s also some too-real KKK like terrorism behavior.

I’ve got a head cold this week, so enjoy my stuffy nose and my mouth breathing, with a side bonus of naughty dogs.

Download here and start after the HBO logo/music go away.

The Doctor Wishes The Author Happy Birthday!

Now, you may not have picked up on this (because I’m so subtle about it), but I love Doctor Who just a teensy little bit.

So much so that, in addiction to mutilating myself in tribute, I also legally changed one of my middle names to Gallifrey, the Doctor’s home planet.

Friday was my birthday, and my friend Petra (who comments on this blog, you’ve probably seen her around) and her son, Connor (who know of my love for The Doctor) had a connection who could make my entire birthday:

When I first saw this in my Twitter DMs, I was like, “Oh, cool, Petra sent me a video of Peter Capaldi.”

Then he said my NAME.

The screaming, the shouting, the running around. Everything was high pitched. It was beautiful.

So, first of all, I’m going to say that Peter Capaldi? Is a freaking stand-up guy. He didn’t have to do this. He was at work, he had other things on his mind. But he did it anyway, for a fan. That’s how much he cares about Whovians. He had the opportunity to make a stranger who loves his show happy. What a great dude.

Second, how awesome are Petra and Connor and their super secret connection? The super secret connection, by the way, was a guy who was nervous to approach Capaldi in the first place, so big hugs and thank yous to that guy, too.

This was one of the most thoughtful birthday surprises ever, and I’ve only watched it about a billion times. The best part? He says I went to the Academy. So, basically, I’m an official Time Lady. I’m insisting this is canon. Fight me.

You can all refer to me as The Author now.

Don’t Do This, Ever: “Please Stop Scrolling” edition

On Monday, writer Camryn Garrett shared a piece she’d written for MTV News. Her essay, “Black Lives Matter Is The Bare Minimum” poignantly describes the frustration that she, a young black woman, feels when comparing her hopes for the future against the injustices of the present, and her anger at watching civil rights activism reduced to slogans while the oppressive machine of white supremacy grinds on.

So obviously, someone had to run in and take her to task for it.

Nielsen also reached out to Garrett directly, which Garrett confirmed to another Twitter user, describing the event as “creepy” and “uncomfortable.”

 

True Blood Tuesday S01E06 “Cold Ground”

I really hate Sam Merlot. If you’d like to hear how much I hate him download this MP3 and start it as soon as the HBO sound and logo fade.

Black Lives, Black Voices Matter

There isn’t a lot I can say about the recent police/state violence against black people just trying to live without being harassed and murdered by law enforcement. It’s wrong, it’s evil, and it’s being perpetrated by our government on local and federal levels all the time. Black people are working against a tireless machine of white supremacy that’s aided not only by the state, but by the media, social media, and the inaction and indifference of white people.

I’m angry. Furious. But my anger and my fury mean absolutely nothing when compared to the pain, the frustration, the hopelessness, all of the awful that steals away the joy and safety from black people every single day. So rather than write another white person thinkpiece about how all of this affects me, me, me, and my white feelings, here are some links where other people share perspectives that are more pertinent and important. If you have any to add, leave them in the comments, but please, no links to tweet threads/Facebook posts (that aren’t your own), because there’s a hostile environment on social media right now.

A Heavy Load, Camryn Garrett

In the Turmoil Over Race and Policing, Children Pay a Steep Emotional Price, Yamiche Alcindor

Michael Brown’s Mom, on Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, Lezley McSpadden

Dallas Shootings Deal Black Police Officers A Double Heartbreak, Christopher Mathias

Being a cop showed me just how racist and violent the police are. There’s only one fix., Reddit Hudson (I hesitated to link to The Washington Post after their Tweet mistakenly identifying DeRay Mckesson as the Dallas shooter, but this take was too compelling not to include it.)

Dallas is a tragedy for all of us – and shouldn’t shut down calls for justice,

Ijeoma Oluo

4 Ways White People Can Process Their Emotions Without Bringing the White Tears, Jennifer Loubriel

VIDEO: StoryCorps Animates a Story of Police Violence From a Black Man Raised by White Parents, Sameer Rao