Rebecca Jones-Howe's Blog, page 9

Why We Shouldn’t Freak Out About MIDNIGHT SUN

Okay, peeps, let’s get real about Midnight Sun, ie. Stephenie Meyer’s upcoming Twilight book that was once stalled because an early draft leaked online and Steph just COULDN’T HANDLE IT. I had already dropped out of college when Twilight was it its peak. I mocked it mercilessly. BUT, things have changed. I’m here to tell you that we shouldn’t freak out about Midnight Sun.

Just hear me out, okay?

SIDE-NOTE: The Midnight Sun cover realllllly sucks. The red looks really gory, and unless Meyer writes some hardcore murderous stuff, I don’t think this filtered stock photo fits the Twilight aesthetic. I actually quite liked the covers of the other 4 books. This cover doesn’t do the other 4 proper justice.

Twilight Sucks

This is standard truth, amirite?

Back in the day I was an avid poster on the forum twilightsucks.com, which was pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It was good times. We were all people with mutual hatred sharing in the mutual hatred.

Twilight sucks because the writing is poor. Twilight sucks because the narrative consistently falls flat. The characters really don’t have goals. The mythology isn’t enticing. Bella’s hardly a protagonist worth rooting for. We’ve got arguments about what lessons the story ultimately teaches women. We’ve got questions about whether or not Edward is a toxic partner. ALL WORTHY CRITICISM.

It’s a mess.

But let’s keep in mind what The Dude tells us:

During Twilight’s 10-year anniversary (HOW IS TIME PASSING THIS FAST?!) I read this wonderful Vox article that summarizes pretty much everything I mentioned above. And yes, it did make me feel differently about the books themselves and what they did for young readers at that time.

Being Of-Age

Back in February, I was browsing the DVD selection that Value Village had to offer my daughter (it’s a great way to score some Disney films if you go in often!) While I was looking, some women in their early 20’s came and shopped beside me. They noticed that all the Twilight movies were there, and they laughed and asked among themselves, “OMG, should we watch Twilight?”

I wanted to tell them YES YOU SHOULD, but it didn’t matter because they bought all the movies and took them home.

They were nostalgic. They were excited. And while the movies aren’t exactly great, they do make for a fun watch! Nevertheless, the banter of these young women brought me (a tired-ass young mother) back to my teenage days for a bit. Back then I was reading V.C. Andrews and life was good. My life was spent READING and I loved every moment of that insecure time of mine.

It Doesn’t Matter What You Read…

…so long as you’re reading.

Right?

Yes, one should probably be browsing for better reading material. (Go and read Blood and Chocolate if you want some hardcore quality teen werewolf romance!) BUT, honestly, people should be allowed to read whatever they want. Why? Because reading is great! The people reading Twilight are going places, imagining characters. And even if those characters are dumb stupid sparkly vampires and barely-human teenage girls, at least their brains are being stimulated by something other than BS reality television.

Stories are important. Even garbage stories are important.

Just let people read their Twilight in peace. Let them enjoy it. I don’t understand why they do and would obviously prefer if they read like, my pandemic-released sexy fiction instead of a bunch of non-sexy vampire fiction that doesn’t even have sexy sex, but whatevs.

Why We SHOULD Be Freaking Out About Midnight Sun

Don’t worry, haters. I got your back.

Here’s the thing. Midnight Sun isn’t a new book. It’s an old book that Meyer stopped writing once it was leaked to the Internet. Not only that, but Midnight Sun is just Twilight repackaged in Edward’s POV.

We already got this once in Grey, which is Christian’s retelling of 50 Shades of Grey, which I can’t imagine did as well as 50 Shades of Grey but still made enough money for the dumb stupid capitalist publishers to be happy with regurgitating content that was LITERALLY JUST TWILIGHT FAN-FICTION IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Why are we indulging in the same content over and over? Why are we totally okay with this?

Stephanie Meyer isn’t dead. She’s perfectly capable of creating new stories. And she did with whatever that one sci-fi novel she wrote was that didn’t do so well. Her sophomore slump happened. That’s okay. (She also wrote another book called The Chemist in 2016, apparently, so it was a little more than a sophomore slump, but I digress.)

My point is: Stephenie Meyer is a writer. She’s supposed to get up and write more stuff. Throw it out there. See what sticks. Why not write a new paranormal romance? It seems to be what readers want, is it not?

She can write more paranormal romance. She can create new characters, develop her storytelling, maybe BE A BETTER WRITER, but she isn’t. She’s dwelling in this universe she built a decade ago.

Asking for More

As readers, we should be asking for more.

I no longer find comfort in remakes. They’re lazy and often lousy. The world no longer relies on writers and instead focuses on whatever CGI bullshit explosions the graphic people can conjure up.

Stephenie Meyer is a writer whose name garners attention, and instead of opening up a new document on her computer and instead of staring that white screen down until her fingers felt compelled to fill the doom of its burn with new words, she dug through her junk drawer for that forgotten memory stick and opened up an old shitty draft of a story that was already a rewrite of another sub-par story. And a published successful sub-par story at that!

It’s been a decade, Steph. You’re tough. You’ve held up to criticism. You’ve proved your prowess. It’s time to let Twilight open the door to new paranormal love.

A Writer’s Perspective

Now, let’s be ABSOLUTELY fair to Stephenie here, as it seems she wants to write more sci-fi and has unfortunately been unable to achieve the same level of success with her two standalone books. To be frank, that really sucks. But let’s also be real and acknowledge the fact that she is LUCKY to have published a bestselling series that allowed her to publish a pair of novels so unlike her original series.

Most of us will never get there and that makes me sad. Every night I’m slaving away on my Patreon stories that literally only 5 people read. I work so hard and receive no payoff, and at times I feel a bit insulted that Stephenie Meyer had a stupid dream, wrote it down and made millions. Meanwhile, I spent what felt like millions of dollars on a few writing courses, made some friends and connections and published one book that I only ever received one royalty payment for.

It totally sucks but that’s the publishing industry for you! Most of us are gonna fail pretty hard and never get up again. And if I had a dollar for every time somebody told me the story about how Stephen King published Carrie or about how J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter as a broke single mom, I’d have enough money to waste on YET ANOTHER online writing course. I don’t need that kind of false hope in my life.

No New Ideas Allowed.

It’s the bloody publishing industry that’s the problem.

The industry ruined V.C. Andrews, too. She used to write fun incestuous family stories. Now she (and by she I mean, Andrew Neiderman, who ghost-writes her stuff) writes whatever is trendy at the time, and has recently revisited the Dollangangers to DEATH. We’ve reread Flowers in the Attic from Chris’s POV, delved waaaaay back into prequel territory and gone INTO THE ATTIC and BENEATH THE ATTIC. Like does this shit need to get inter-dimensional before Simon and Shuster find a new family horror writer to torture-churn out sub-par fiction for the masses?

The publishing industry (and by industry I mean, capitalism) just bleeds everything to death. It’s frustrating, quite honestly, how the industry will devour an author, murder hornet-style, instead of venturing into the depths of Twitter for new things to sell. The publishing industry couldn’t even find a damn way to exploit the need for more minority stories properly.

Fuck all of this. Just fuck it.

We gotta stop indulging in what the media tells us is good. We gotta start doing our own work find our own entertainment, because popular culture is a graveyard of taste that leads us to expect less, not just from art, but from society as a whole.

Sour Grapes

So that’s my rant: I think we deserve more.

Indie writers offer more. So if you wanna get really chapped about Midnight Sun, go and support a fledgling writer and read their work. Give them your money. Check out the #writingcommunity on Twitter, type in your genre and see what you can find. There literally is something for everyone and writers are BEGGING you to try reading their work.

Do what you can to support them, because right now, just about every single author staying up until 3AM every night churning out quality content with crippling anxiety is pretty much this:

Are You A Twilight Fan?

Do you think you deserve more, or are you okay with reading more of the same? Do you like to read more work by the same author or do you prefer to read stuff along the same genre?

For writers of PARANORMAL ROMANCE: Plug your stuff in the comments or on this thread. Click the tweet and find some new reads from indie authors:

Hello #WritingCommunity! If you write #paranormalromance that’s TWILIGHT-esque, share your links here!

— Rebecca Jones-Howe (@rjoneshowe) May 4, 2020

For EVERYONE WHO READS: How do you feel about Midnight Sun? Do you think Robert Pattinson will sign on to do the movie? Because if anything, we deserve more Robert Pattinson and I haven’t heard much from him as of late…

CREDITS

Header Image: Charlotte Noelle

The post Why We Shouldn’t Freak Out About MIDNIGHT SUN appeared first on REBECCAJONESHOWE.COM.

MOODBOARD: “The Red House”

HOLY SHIT does it feel like forever since I last made a MOODBOARD post. It wasn’t even that long ago but time obviously hit a weird pandemic vortex in mid-March. I posted my last moodboard for “Coping Mechanisms” on April 6th, which still kind of feels like distant history. We were all still processing this stuff. Now we’re all pros and I’ve got a new tale set in pandemic times for you. It’s called “The Red House” and it’s a classic gothic horror but set in, well, pandemic times.

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Battling Writer’s Block

I had some extra time between publishing “White Rabbit” and I used it up to write “Coping Mechanisms”, which took up a bit TOO much time, quite honestly. Therein began my problem. I used my pandemic story to work through my pandemic feelings, and once I finished it, I found myself overwhelmed with a void I couldn’t fill.

I’ve been plagued with many late nights as of late. It’s like anxiety brain on the verge of insomnia. It’s COVID-19-related while also just being adult-related. I worry about the door being locked. I also worry about my blood sugars crashing and whether or not I did my insulin or did too much insulin. Also, the pressure of writing these stories IS getting to me. While this exercise has proven beneficial, that impulsive need to produce MORE MORE MORE agonizes me at times. I want to be writing like 7 stories at once. I want to be submitting work and working on a novel and DOING ALL THE THINGS and I just can’t.

Long story short, I worked through it. It took time but I slaughtered those writing demons. Yes, I still have the endless late-nights but who bloody isn’t having late nights at this point?

What’s “The Red House” About?

It’s essentially a ghost story, a haunted house story, and domestic violence story all wrapped up in a gothic wrapper. Since the pandemic hit, I’ve kind of felt his NEED to tell stories about people working through this mess.

Seeing that I’ve been feeling wary about what the future holds, I have made the intention of telling stories set in pandemic times. “Coping Mechanisms” was about essential workers. This time around I wanted to tell a quarantine story, so why not make it a haunted house story, right?

Essentially, “The Red House” is about a non-essential worker, Annie, who moves in with her distant uncle to find some safe-haven from her brooding fiance.

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Inspiration

Originally I was inspired by this viral thread on r/relationship_advice about a man whose fiance won’t let him into the upstairs floor of their new house. It’s pretty crazy, and also proved to be mind-stimulating in a time when I LITERALLY WAS IMPENETRABLE TO NEW IDEAS. This thread proved to be a damn god-send, honestly. It triggered the original idea for “The Red House”, but it quickly evolved beyond the “what the hell is upstairs?” question from the Reddit thread.

Honestly, I have a lot of trouble building terror in fiction. At least, when it comes to terror in a supernatural form. It’s just not the story I want to tell, because, as I mentioned before, I like my horror to be psychological in nature. And so I threw in the right psychological stuff to make this truly a RJH tale.

A Breakup Story

One of my absolute favorite things to write about is the death of romantic relationships. I’ve done it time and time again. The subject fails to bore me. There are endless ways to tell breakup stories, endless ways to make them fresh and relevant.

“The Red House” touches both on romantic relationships and family dynamics. It deals to some degree with domestic violence, which is currently a very concerning factor for many women currently in quarantine. And just like “Coping Mechanisms” was my way of working through the concerns of minimum wage essential workers, “The Red House” is essentially a story of a woman in danger. It’s about a dying relationship and the impacts of its fallout on all parties involved.

Gothic Inspiration

I don’t call myself a “horror fan” but the first story I ever wrote in the third grade WAS a ghost story. My tastes in horror lie mostly in the slasher or psychological horror realm but I do LOVE me that gothic horror. I can’t get enough of it. I’m a lady and I like my fictional men untrustworthy and dangerous.

“The Red House” started as a bit of a ghost story and went full-on classic gothic with some V.C. Andrews influences. I even reference Midnight Whispers from the Cutler series. Why? Because V.C. Andrews men are always brooding and messed-up. They’re virtually never sexy (IMO!) but I’ve noticed while doing my Grown-Ass V.C. Andrews review series that they often have this ridiculous obsession with vintage sheer nightgowns that always borders on laughable.

Look, I love me a vintage peignoir. I wish I could wear them. I wish I could be reckless enough to spend a quarter of my CERB benefits on a brand new Catherine D’Lish robe but I am — how you do say it — at least reasonably responsible with my money now.

I’d describe “The Red House” as a bit of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca meets V.C. Andrews meets the coronavirus.

The Setting

I’m not sure how other writers form houses in their stories. I typically like to use places I’ve been to but places I haven’t spent too much time in. The place needs to linger in the corners of memory so I can create new stories happening there. That, or I’ll look up house plans online and get a proper idea of a building, because I HATE how the mind can’t properly construct a house. Mine can’t anyway.

The house itself is one in downtown Kamloops that I went to once to pick-up a dresser I bought online. It was gorgeous and spacious but the upstairs definitely looked a bit creepy. You know that like thick shiny paint look? Where they paint over the windows and the heating grate ALL THE SAME COLOUR? That stuff? I do recall the windows all having a pretty pane of stained glass. The woman who lived there was in the process of moving out but mentioned just how much she loved living there.

I’d forgotten about it for a while, but it being an old house was perfect. I tried to find it on Google Maps but I can’t, despite the fact that its location was only limited to a few blocks on a few streets. I’m positive the owners must have repainted it from the house from the red colour it was 5 years ago to a blue shade.

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A Break From the Norm

Ultimately, “The Red House” sent me out of my comfort zone. I left minimalism and extended my word count to properly describe the house in gothic detail. The story’s over 6000 words and I’m really excited to share it. I’m proud of it.

If you’re just as excited to read, you can get it on Patreon once it drops by joining my Exclusive Stories tier for $5 a month. You’ll get access to all the stories I’ve written thus far this year (with ebook downloads!), plus exclusive posts on Patreon AND here on the blog.

You’ll also be supporting me and my work, which means absolutely everything to me. I spend a lot of late nights writing, making graphics, designing the ebooks. It’s a major labour in terms of self-marketing.

Art is important now more than ever. Art makes the world go around and a portion of the money I make via Patreon just gets recycled back toward the small group of writers and creators who I support on Patreon. Let’s keep the money in creative pockets!

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IMAGE CREDITS

Closet / Hand / House / Bathroom / Lace Woman / Wood Floor / Bottles / Bathing Woman

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5 Ways That Coronavirus is Impacting My Kid

Everyone’s sharing their coronavirus impact tales online and they’re all so similar, right? We’re just chilling in our sweatpants, baking bread, drinking wine in a paranoid frenzy. I prefer these gin sodas myself. But here’s something we don’t often think about: How is coronavirus impacting my kid?

My 5 year-old has driven me to the brink of madness. I could rant on and on about the television I’ve watched or the number of times I destroyed her in UNO or the meltdowns I’ve endured, but let’s think about my daughter for a bit because she’s gonna grow up mentally impacted by this COVID-19 stuff.

She’s Getting Pissed About Staying Inside

This is where we all started, right? We wanted to take our kids to the playground but now it’s got that CAUTION tape all around it and we somehow have to explain that it’s not a murder scene but a potential death scene because the virus might be all up in the crevices of the slide, yo.

I take my daughter out when I work up enough mental fortitude to do so. It’s tough because I have a lot riding against me:

I live on a steep hill (walking sucks!).I don’t drive (because I’m eco-friendly but also like to torture myself by walking a lot).My backyard isn’t child-friendly (no fences and lots of pine needles!).The weather has been TERRIBLE.My son is still a baby and can’t do anything but like, sit there.

Four years is big enough an age gap to make outdoor adventures difficult. It’s only gonna get harder when my boy starts to walk because those pine needles, right? So usually I stay inside and now daughter is hella mad a lot of the time.

“We can’t go out because of the stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid virus!” is her typical mantra.

I do hope that we’ll be taking advantage of the outdoors more when this all blows over.

She’s Nagging ME to Wash MY Hands

We definitely watched those Disney COVID-19 parody songs a myriad of times. It’s already ruined the lyrics she’s memorized from The Little Mermaid’s “Part of Your World”.

Instead of “Wish I could be, part of your world…”, she always sings, “Something unseen, COVID-19!” in the bath now. It’s great!

She only sort of understands the hand-washing thing. As a result, I turn on the nagging mom WASH YOUR HANDS talk consistently. I make her sing Happy Birthday twice, which was great when my son’s birthday came around mid-April. I got into the practice of nagging her to wash her hands. It became a joke, some fun.

Now? When I use the bathroom, she yells at me.

“MAKE SURE YOU WASH YOUR HANDS, MOM!”

“DID YOU WASH YOUR HANDS?!”

“WASH YOUR HANDS WITH SOAP!”

I mean, we’re all going to be washing our hands to the point of eczema for the rest of our lives, but are my daughter’s hands going to be stripped of flesh by the time she’s a teen? Because they’re dry AF and she hates putting on lotion.

She’s Obsessively Cleaning Her Toys

The obsessing with cleanliness doesn’t stop at hands, folks! Now my daughter is obsessed with cleaning all her dirty toys. If you’re a parent you know that nasty film of juice-Cheerio-hand-gunk that gets on top of everything plastic. She’s noticed it too. And she likes to shut herself in the bathroom now so she can wash them all.

I like this time because it allows me to churn out the beginnings of a new blog post, but often times I don’t realize what she’s washing in there, and she’s already washed a couple of battery-operated toys. Her toy drill? Washed. Her toy Ariel camera? Water got ALL UP IN THERE.

My husband managed to open up the drill and dry out the inside. The camera seems to have fared okay, but I opened it up and left all the pieces out on the table to dry and THEN she get into the pieces and ripped a couple of the cables off the circuit board. I think they’re fixable. I have a soldering iron and enough high school electronics knowledge to make it happen.

But the ambition? Do I really want to hear Ariel tell me how beautiful I look for the 12,394th time my daughter takes a pretend picture of me? Fixing that camera is the last thing I want to do at the end of the night when I get time to myself.

She’s Attached to My Hip

I’m not joking. If I bring myself to her level at any point during the day, she latches onto me like a spider and NEVER LET’S GO. The end of the night is always a struggle because she wants me to stay in the bed with her and begs and begs and begs every night.

Now, props to all you parents who do the co-sleeping thing and enjoy it, but I just can’t with that noise. I stay up late and I need my own sleep and on the few occasions where I do sneak into my daughter’s room to spend the night, she WAKES UP, like wide awake, and we just lay in the dark and talk about stuff like adult onesie pajamas and how stupid it is that grown up people wear them as “day clothes”.

While nice, these moments don’t exactly help in us getting sleep, which all my nurse friends tell me is essential in keeping up that coronavirus immunity.

My daughter and I have bonded quite a bit (usually while my son is napping). I’ll play games where I’ll hold her up feet and pretend she’s a superhero, or I’ll let her cling to my leg and I’ll try to do leg-lifts. Dumb stuff, but fun stuff. Problem is that she now CLINGS and REFUSES TO LET GO until I snap, or rather, until I have to have that face to face discussion with her once again about respecting people’s wishes.

I love that we can be so close. I was never very physically close with my parents growing up, so this kind of interaction will benefit my kid. BUT, I need my space sometimes and I also appreciate being able to cook dinner without a 5-year-old clinging to my leg 24/7. There are limits, man.

She’s Maturing

This is likely the biggest way that coronavirus is impacting my kid. I have a friend who lives a few doors down with a 2 year-old boy who we sometimes try to play with on a social distancing basis. It’s tough. We’re not perfect. The kids get too close sometimes but we do our best.

We need that social connection, right? My kid needs it, most of all. Before all this, she went to preschool and had friends and lots of social time. She misses school and church and our usual outings. So now, those evenings when we get to go outside and play with bubbles for 20 minutes? That’s the best part of her LIFE right now.

The other day she tried to invite her new pal to the house. Like INSIDE the house, and later in the evening I had to explain to her that we couldn’t do that because of the virus. And she was like, “Oh no! I lost control! I forgot about the virus!”

That was hard. I told her it was okay. I gave her a hug. And you know, she gives me hugs a lot too. When I’m sad? When I’m ranting? Those times when my anxiety gets the best of me and I shed a few tears? She comes and gives me a hug.

“When you’re sad, I get sad, and I want you to feel better.”

This is what my 5-year-old does now. This is how the coronavirus is impacting my kid. The emotional intelligence she now possesses?

The impacts aren’t all terrible.

Are you a parent?

Is coronavirus impacting your kid? What things have you noticed? Are they good or bad and how has your relationship chanced with your kid since things got real?

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Quibi’s THE STRANGER Recap: Part 13

Here we are, friends! It’s Part 13, the final episode of The Stranger! Part 11 ended with Clare smiling for once and now, after a weekend off, we return to discover just what she has planned.

Part 13: 7AM

Finally we get some time alone with Carl E. He’s decked-out in beige with a new dog and a beige early 90s BMW convertible that isn’t actually a BMW convertible because they obscured the logo. The camera pans to some obviously post CGI graffiti that reads: WELCOME TO THE CITY OF DREAMS

It’s funny because if you watch this scene in portrait mode, they modify the graffiti to fit within the screen constraints.

He blasts “When Will I See You Again” on the stereo, smooths his hair back and does what we all did in GTAV: rip through the L.A. River like a madman. But THEN something crashes against the windshield and sends the car hurdling into a dumpster.

The airbag refuses to save Carl E.’s back, or rather, his face, which smashes against the steering wheel. Stunned, he rights himself and picks up the pink bejeweled dog leash that Clare held onto in Part 11. He tosses it aside and grunts his way out of the car.

The accident breaks his shin bone. Like it’s literally busted out of his leg, dude. Pebbles just whimpers and I gotta wonder how she got out of this unscathed. She was just sitting in the effin’ passenger seat. Why is she not hurt or thrown from the vehicle?

Clare steps into the frame and Carl E. crawls uselessly for his gun. He’s a MESS, guys, and I kind of love it. Next to devious dudes I do love me a good miserable sad dude and Clare gets to have some FUN with with both.

“Trying to get this?” Clare asks, picking up the gun.

“The student becomes the teacher. Thanks to me and my experiment,” Carl E. says.

“If that’s what you call stalking, kidnapping and murder.”

“Well, some call it releasing their inner goddess,” Carl E. says, gathering some smugness back as he sits up. He asks how Clare managed to find him.

“The same way you followed me: with her.”

Cut to the dog.

“It’s the only thing that I loved, the one thing that I had here,” she says, referring to Pebbles as an OBJECT instead of the LIVING, BREATHING, GORGEOUS AND LOVING CREATURES THAT SHE IS. What kind of “vegan” are you, Clare?

She retraces Carl E.’s steps back to him as all thrillers do in the “grand plan is revealed!” scene.

“So you broke into my apartment, drugged her, and then fucked with her chip.”

You see, Carl E. expected that Clare would get her dog chipped, but he DIDN’T expect that she would just give up Pebbles. No, vegan Clare would totally make Pebbles commit dog suicide with her if she were REALLY gonna kill herself. That’s real human-dog connection, right?

“I underestimated you,” Carl E. says for the last and final time. “You get a gold star. Yay for you!” He holds out a hand. “Now help me up.”

Clare then recites some security camera statistics she probably Googled before her suicide fake-out. Turns out, security cameras are EVERYWHERE but NOT in the L.A. River.

“You’re not walking out of here, or crawling,” she says while the camera’s angle reveals the new rainbow shoes she picked up from the car package that JJ got in Part 8. They’re sneakers, which are closed-toe and wonderful and protect her feet!

“This is the one place where you an scream and scream and scream and no one will ever hear you.” She points the gun at Carl E., who still doesn’t buy that he’s gonna die.

Clare’s emotion gets the best of her and she asks him why he had to kill JJ. “He was a good person,” she says.

“Yeah,” Carl E. agrees. “And you’re not. You were made a loser and you’ll go out as one, boo-hooing down the Yellow Brick Road.” His voice starts cracking. He’s upset. He’s gonna cry. “Now fucking help me up!”

His rage echoes but Clare holds firm. She lowers the gun and whistles. “Pebbles, kill,” she says.

The dog whimpers, but her cries sound quite similar to the sounds from Part 8. What happened in that part? Do you remember?

TURNS OUT THAT THAT SILLY COYOTE INTERLUDE WASN’T SO POINTLESS AFTER ALL!

“What a badass,” Carl E. mocks.

Clare picks up the dog. “You wanna know why I’m crying?” she asks.

“Because you need a stylist.”

To which I say, YES, Carl E. she could use some legit pampering right now, but you have more important shit to think about.

Clare walks off and tells Carl E. not to forget his phone. He finds it jammed in the frame of an overturned shopping cart and struggles to crawl over to it. The wallpaper has his face on it. Seriously. Who uses a selfie as their cell phone wallpaper?

“California Dreamin'” by Sia starts to play.

The coyotes howl, approaching from a nearby tunnel.

Carl E. fails to get the phone, instead turning on the camera, which begins recording a video of the second-ever coyote-caused adult human fatality! So exciting, right?

EXCEPT, when Carl E. struggles to get the phone (as if it’s gonna save him) he knocks it off the shopping cart and the phone records his death in BLOODY PORTRAIT MODE and we miss all the good stuff.

Carl E. does his best Ramsay Bolton, but much like Ramsay Bolton, the dogs listen to no man. Also kind of funny how his beige ensemble and his car match the colour of the cement.

A Yellow Brick road of sorts, which Clare walks down back into the city of Los Angeles. Unlike most badasses, she looks back to watch Carl E. die. Then she turns, carrying Pebbles off into a very emerald-tinted shot of the city.

The Stranger: Part 13 Thoughts

Time constraints aside, this ending proved itself worthy. While I can’t entirely buy Clare’s character shift, it was fun to watch her and Carl E. banter back and forth a bit before Clare took the upper hand.

I loved the first 4 parts, but once the show detoured into its relationship B-plot between Clare and JJ, the tension suffered. The middle of this show sagged and Carl E’s threat really dissipated. Perhaps in a real movie we could have had more time to appreciate JJ, but he sadly was more of a caricature than an ally.

Ultimately, some bits felt clunky. The characters were B-grade at best. This Vulture article pretty much sums up the failures of the Quibi format. When you get right down to it, 10 minutes is just too damn short to make segments of a bigger production. A proper show would need about 12-15 minutes, you know, like that show Bonding on Netflix that I seriously recommend. (It’s only 7 episodes long. Each one is about 15 minutes AND we get depth and character and some fun tense scenes.)

The Stranger does work in short format, but only because it sacrifices on things like characterization and action. I really wanted to see a final action sequence similar to the climax of Red Eye, which starts with this scene where the protagonist outwits the villian (spoilers, obviously), and then progresses into many many many more action-packed minutes of upper-hand reversals.

Maybe in 8-10 episodes at 15-20 minutes an episode, it could have been more effective? This is just too tense a story to tell in such short bursts.

Instead, in The Stranger, Clare makes the switch and via stupid dialogue, Carl E. BEGS Clare to help him stand up? I just wish we had more time to spend with these two. Carl E. was such a fun villain but he came off as more of a comic book villain than a really memorable one. Dane DeHaan brought a lot of life to the script when he was given the opportunity to. Sadly, we got a lot of his horrific intimacy in the first two episodes, and we left wanting for virtually the rest of the entire show. We didn’t get to see how evil Carl E. really was.

Maika Monroe is easily one of horror’s best actresses but Clare just wasn’t a character she could add much more to. And I loved Avan Jogia as JJ. I’d kill to see him in a good Adventureland-esque kind of movie. He does the awkward dude character reaaaaaaaly well.

The Stranger proved itself an effective thriller, I suppose. It was a fun distraction while I worked through my writer’s block. But alas, now I can get rid of my Quibi subscription!

The post Quibi’s THE STRANGER Recap: Part 13 appeared first on REBECCAJONESHOWE.COM.

My New (Writer) Normal

Folks, I struggled after releasing my pandemic story, “Coping Mechanisms“. That story was my own coping mechanism for a bit. An escape. It kept me writing, in the “new normal” of pandemic times. I felt so ON FIRE when I posted it, the high of which immediately dropped after the story went live. Why? Because I had to write another story. And then another. And another. The thought of continuing the slog grew overwhelming.

Some New Struggles

I feel like April’s release happened years ago. That wind-up to Easter became a blur. I remember listening to April’s story playlist on the bus in early March, heading to a dentist appointment. The news played while I got my teeth cleaned, and even the hygienist assured me that they were taking extra precautions while Italy was literally shut down. Back then, I wasn’t worried. Surely things in North America wouldn’t get that dire.

That was my last public outing before this all happened. My dad looked after the kids while I was gone. Things were still normal. And then they got dire.

I started a myriad of pandemic horror tales. None of them wanted to cooperate. I struggled to write while dealing with my kids. I struggled to write while my husband worked. He works in the alcohol industry, so he works ENDLESSLY. We barely get to talk or spend time together anymore. Though we did recently get a couple nights to finally start season 5 of Better Call Saul together. We’re waaay behind though so NO EFFIN’ SPOILERS.

What My New Normal Looks Like

I’ve been biding time writing my stupid The Stranger recaps. Blogging proved tough. I couldn’t express shit and I was getting depressed AF. Typically I don’t like to write about my emotional funks while I’m in them. It doesn’t make for great blog content, IMO. I prefer to use my fiction to channel my emotions, BUT I COULDN’T EVEN WRITE THAT.

Wasting time with recaps at least kept me flexing those writing muscles while I worked through my shit. It also kept the hits coming on the blog. I’ve met some fellow viewers of the show and it’s been great.

It will be nice once The Stranger wraps up, though. The recaps keep me up later than I should be awake. BUT I would def recommend recapping as an exercise for any writer. It’s great practice for writing that dreaded novel synopsis.

Most nights I put the kids to bed and write until midnight when the new episode comes up at midnight. I watch it and churn out the recap. Then it’s 1AM and I force myself to head to bed, but the mix of caffeine and brain-churning keeps me up reading until 2AM, usually. Most nights I don’t get to sleep until after 3.

Because let’s face it, we’re in a pandemic and our sleep is hella messed up.

My 5 year-old daughter usually gets up at 8 and watches TV on her own, which allows me extra time to make up sleep. I wake up at 9AM, because my son is also AMAZING and sleeps in like a kind-hearted little boy who loves it when his mom gets to be lazy.

I make coffee, put on the Majority Report and make my daughter’s breakfast. Maybe I’ll blog a little before I waking up my son. I feed him food. He fusses until he gets sleepy. Then I put him down for a nap and either I take a nap or I take my daughter outside. Depends on the day!

My husband comes home. He makes dinner while I deal with the kids. We try to make eating at the table a priority, because my daughter needs as much time away from the TV as possible. It’s been nice in light of the circumstances.

Almost…. normal.

How much writing does my New Normal Produce?

My son’s been teething so he goes to bed early now. My daughter never wants to sleep so putting her to bed is a giant pain in the ass. Jon goes to bed earlier than my daughter so most of the time I feel like a single mom.

Once the house is quiet, I hunker down over the computer and FORCE THE FUCKING WORDS OUT.

Last week I started my new Patreon-exclusive story. I should have started it a long time ago. I did start several potential Patreon stories a while ago but none of them panned out. Ideas refused to manifest. Nevertheless, I settled on SOMETHING, which I turned into SOMETHING WITH POTENTIAL.

Two days ago I finished a first draft.

One day ago I started editing that draft and HEY, it’s actually pretty decent.

Last night I finished the second draft, and HEY, I’ve got a good pandemic ghost story. I won’t lie.

I worked through writer’s block by writing other stuff. And honestly, friends, you can STILL get a free 90-day trial of Quibi until April 30th, so get on that and flex some recapping muscles, because it is FUN.

The next step for me is figuring out how to write some shorter stories to potentially publish. (The Patreon stories are always about 5000 words and consume a lot of my time, graphic and promotional work included.) I appreciate those of you who’s subscribed to this trial run of “new

It’s been quite some time since I hit the magazine grind. I want go back. I want to maybe try flash fiction.

Gotta use my pandemic time wisely here, because I literally don’t know how I managed to write stories under 2500 words.

The New Normal Continues

My manager called me up yesterday to let me know that my workplace will remain closed for the foreseeable future. I am very fortunate in terms of work. Because I worked full-time before my maternity leave, I have a job to return to. Just a little example of “counting one’s blessings”.

I haven’t worked in a year and I miss my co-workers. I miss making displays. Being on my feet is nice and I’ve lacked that physical aspect, honestly. (Part of the fun of writing “Coping Mechanisms” was reliving my retail job.)

BUT, in lieu of work, I have this free time to spend working on writing. At this point I plan on continuing the Patreon adventure for the rest of the year. Hopefully I can churn out a few stories for magazines as well. Then, next year it’ll be time to write NOVEL #2, which I kind of want to self-publish?

I don’t know.

I’m keeping my options open and AuthorTube is full of self-published authors willing to share their secrets to success. I’ve also been spending more time on Twitter, trying to build my audience a bit.

Sometimes I really feel like I’m failing hard. I’m not producing enough. I suck so bad at marking. But this is a process, right? I’ve learned a lot and things are improving. My follower count is growing. My engagements are up.

I have a half-assed attempt at a “plan”.

Things are working.

I try not to bee too hard on myself because I have been doing exactly that and I gotta stop. The writing is progressing. The writing will come.

How’s your new normal?

Have you been writing (or producing art or whatever you do on the side)? Does your new normal FEEL normal yet? How comfortable are you? I suppose the toughest part is working through the stress of the bad days and looking at each new day at a new opportunity. Which is easier said than done, right?

If you’re in need of entertaniment, feel free to check out “Coping Mechanisms” if you haven’t read it yet. I just put it on Wattpad if you read fiction there. And hey, if you like it, I’ve got a lot more fiction in varied levels of hotness, darkness and horror over on my Patreon.

[image error] During the COVID-19 pandemic, essential Costco employee, Jamie endures a violent panic-buying incident with her new cor-worker, Brendan, the aftermath of which bonds them in a salacious workplace affair to cope.

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Quibi’s THE STRANGER Recap: Part 12

Here we are, friends, at Part 12 of Quibi’s The Stranger! This is the penultimate episode, where crazy things should happen. It should be wild. It should be the best episode, but those honors still go to Part 2, sadly. Anyway, we pick up from the downer of Part 11, where the cops murdered JJ, otherwise known as gas station dude, in a bathroom stall.

Part 13: 6AM

Clare goes over the incident with the police chief. I respect that they made her visible minority and a woman but her super cliche police tone is annoying AF.

Woke-checkbox police chief apologies for JJ’s murder. Turns out Carl E. hacked into the mainframe and sneaked a drugged JJ inside while disguised as a police officer. Woke-checkbox police chief says Carl E. “turned off the security cameras to the bathroom hallway”, but then immediately shows Clare SECURITY FOOTAGE of Carl E. dragging JJ inside.

Like what?

Clare confirms that the grinning police officer is, in fact, Carl E. Woke-checkbox police chief says they looked him up but couldn’t find him anywhere on the database.

“How did he know that you were working with us, that you were even here?”

Clare looks over a a perp getting checked with a metal detector. She pulls off her jacket. She strips off her sweater because she’s certain that there’s a tracking device on her. The officer FLIPS SHIT and shakes Clare, demanding that she calm down, which is kind of overkill, right? But it does the job. Like, I just can’t with this police brutality, guys. I can’t.

Woke-checkbox police chief assures Clare that what happened wasn’t her fault. Clare asks if she’s under arrest. She isn’t, so she takes Pebbles and her clothes.

“You’re never gonna catch him,” she says breathlessly and last wordsingly.

Woke-checkbox police chief just stands there like there’s nothing else to do for the rest of the day. Back to trying to solve the Black Dahlia murder, I guess?

Sad piano music builds as Clare stands at the train station. We know she’s going back to Kansas because a conveniently-timed station message tells us the train to Kansas is leaving.

The piano sadness builds, showing Clare standing on top of a hotel roof, staring at the L.A. skyline. She continues the walking tour to the ASPCA, where she gives Pebbles to the woman behind the desk. (Isn’t it 6AM? Do animal rescue centers open that early?) Violins chime in as Pebbles shows no motion in live-action Lion King-style while she’s being carried away.

The crescendo rises to the occasion as Clare ventures to the edge of a viaduct viewing platform over the Los Angeles River. She gets up onto the ledge and the camera pans over her to reveal the bare cement below.

And then the creepy chime goes off because we all expected it to, DIDN’T WE?!

Carl E. appears in a video call, sitting in the driver’s seat of a convertible, pulling off his best Barack Obama in a new tan coat. He lists off a selection of potential suicide options she might currently be taking.

“Meanwhile, I ride off into the sunset with my new Orbit drier’s permit. Wish me luck as I join the ridesharing community off to find my next test bunny!”

I love how informal he is. He plays it well and sounds just like unsuspecting MLM consultants do when they first join ItWorks! But we get one final surprise when Carl E. turns the phone to reveal a whimpering Pebbles in the passenger seat.

“She’ll love me in the end,” Carl E. says. “All the girls do. Or else I’ll just slit her throat.”

And honestly, I wish I could have seen him slit just one throat because he feels like an empty threat right now.

“Bye bye, Boo Boo,” he says. “Until we meet again.”

He ends the call.

Clare drops her phone and smiles.

The Stranger: Part 12 Thoughts

Boring, right?

Clare obviously has a plan up her sleeve, but it’s obvious that we’re not getting a knife-wielding action-packed showdown between Clare and Carl E.

My issue right now with this show is the time it wasted on forced emotional moments. This show doesn’t have the time to devote to this much characterization. It only gets 10 minutes an episode. For that short of a time-span, I need my reptile brain stimulated and I’m sorry, but a murderer IN A BEIGE COAT isn’t gonna do it.

The post Quibi’s THE STRANGER Recap: Part 12 appeared first on REBECCAJONESHOWE.COM.

Quibi’s THE STRANGER Recap: Part 11

Last episode of The Stranger placed us into new thriller territory. Carl E. took JJ hostage in the trunk of his car and Clare told her story to the police, allowing them to set up a bait situation to get Carl E.’s location. Now, Part 11 of The Stranger puts Clare on a mission to prove Carl E’s algorithm wrong.

Part 11: 5AM

The 10,000-man SWAT teams heads over to the abandoned meat factory where Carl E’s been chilling. Clare gets a moment to finally wash her face but she STILL MISSES A SPOT OF BLOOD SOMEHOW?!

The music box chime finally makes its return with a new message from Carl E:

WHAT’S THE BEST THING ABOUT A MUSLIM SEX DOLL?

Clare hesitates. Then the lights go off. She spends a moment in the dark before waving her hand to trigger the motion lights, which is a really fun fake-out moment. Clare returns to the phone, her finger shaking over the convenient question mark response on her keyboard app.

She sends it.

Immediately, a phone notification goes off in the bathroom stall behind her. The camera pans downward to reveal Carl E’s telltale shoes. And hey, we know this gag now. It’s def not him, but the camera’s focus on the exit door at the end of the hall and the score and Maika Monroe’s quiet fear really sell this scene.

Back at the meat factory, the SWAT team investigates. Carl E. rigged it with a remote device. The cops manage to bypass it and find a weird weapon.

The cop onsite gives the exposition we need:

“Captive bolt gun. They use it to stun the cattle before cutting their throats.”

Further into the factory, they find a room with a hooded figure tied to a chair.

Cut back to the police station, where Clare finds a beefy idiot cop to alert about the figure in the bathroom. Beefy Idiot Cop pages another barrage of officers to deal with the situation. They point guns at the stall door, demanding that Carl E come out in ten seconds, otherwise they will come in.

The shoes remain still.

In the hallway, Clare finds Pebbles, who barks madly just like she did when Clare first got into JJ’s car in Part 6. Beefy Idiot Cop demands that Clare “control her animal” but then the creepy music box tone goes off with Carl E’s answer to the riddle:

THEY BLOW THEMSELVES UP!

Cut back to the meat factory, where the officer spins the chair around and pulls the covered head off the figure wearing JJ’s shirt. Of course it’s a sex doll, which makes me wonder if Carl E’s got a storage locker somewhere with a bunch of them to use for future murders.

At the police station, Clare busts past Beefy Idiot Cop and makes her way to the bathroom right as the cops count down from ten. Things go all slow motion as Clare makes her way down. The police start firing into the bathroom stall, because of course they wouldn’t use their strength in numbers to properly bust down the door and restrain the individual properly.

And well, another captive bolt gun falls to the floor and JJ’s dead body falls out after it.

And yeah, we don’t need the sappy violin music or Clare’s devastated reaction to make us feel stuff. We all liked JJ and it’s sad to see him die like this. He was just a poor Millennial gas station dude trying to live in L.A. Trying to become a programmer. At least this way he won’t have to worry when Vlad does his next dumpster check and finds the other sex doll in there, right?

RIGHT?!

The Stranger: Part 11 Thoughts

I dunno. This episode checks off all the standard thriller element boxes. We get the build-up and the tension and the mystery and the ultimate twist reveal. My issue is that I just hate cops in movies and The Stranger Part 11 just makes it worse by having TOO MANY COPS.

And they’re all stupid cops too.

I’m sad about Gas Station dude because I barely got to know his name. I’m sad because his death is on police hands.

I do wonder how Carl E. managed to get him into the police station undetected but I guess a majority of the cops were on the meat factory part of the mission, and all the dunce cops stayed put to protect Clare, so yeah.

I also don’t understand the sex doll joke. First, nothing exploded. Second, JJ isn’t Muslim, as far as we know. The sex doll wasn’t Muslim, even though the camera took a long pan of its face for some reason. Like I dunno. Carl E’s little gags are B-grade at best, but I miss the guy who joked about Nancy Pelosi in Part 2, quite honestly.

Typically, deaths of this caliber don’t bug me, but I liked JJ a lot. Avan Jogia played him with bit of vulnerable charm in those first couple appearances. The character felt a bit wooden in later episodes, but Jogia played him really well the whole way through.

I will miss Gas Station dude, but to be honest, I miss Carl E. more.

Because once again, The Stranger Part 11 lacked Dane DeHaan.

The post Quibi’s THE STRANGER Recap: Part 11 appeared first on REBECCAJONESHOWE.COM.

Quibi’s THE STRANGER Recap: Part 10

I discovered today that Quibi’s The Stranger is actually 13 episodes long, which will extend this night-long horror into 6AM of whatever fictionalized version of a non-pandemic 2020 this is. Last episode gave us a breakup scene between Clare and the character formally known as Gas Station dude. We also learned his name is JJ.

FINALLY! Plot stuff is happening in The Stranger Part 10!

Part 10: 4AM

Clare walks down a rather empty L.A. tunnel, choosing only to utilize the pink dog leash from JJ’s lousy disguise kit. I like the break in time here because I can buy into Clare’s character shift more easily. A car nearly hits her and then the phone chimes to life.

Sadly, it’s not with Carl E’s ringtone, but SURPRISE!, it’s none other than Carl E. who’s had three episodes without a speaking role, so his Pete Buttigieg impression is PRIMO now.

We get hot into the dialogue.

“It’s your imaginary firend, Clare,” he says.

“I’m not crazy,” Clare says. “You’re just trying to make me think I’m going crazy.”

“Oh, like your high school teacher did?”

Whoa! So we add a little gaslighting into the mix. Is Carl E. gaslighting Clare into believing she was originally gaslit by her teacher? This show doesn’t have enough episodes to go that deep, so Carl has to be real at this point. Anyway, we go a little deeper into Clare’s background and it’s your standard disturbing affair “hot for teacher” affair. Carl E. gets nice and graphic about “desk-fucking” event he read about online.

Clare nearly breaks but lifts the phone back to her mouth. “Fuck you,” she says.

“Now, we’re talking!” Carl E. responds.

Clare defends herself, admits how she lost everything in the aftermath, which makes Carl reason that all the rumors he read about online were true. He asks why Clare lied and she says it was because nobody believed her anyway.

Carl E. then goes on his Netflix documentary ramble about how you can find anything you want about anybody on the Internet. BOOM, the show’s theme in a line of dialogue! Carl E. explains that he’s been following Clare online her whole life.

And I gotta wonder, how long is this? How old is Clare? She looks late 20’s to me but the teacher affair happened in high school, which would have been ten whole years before. So MySpace days? Was Carl following her damn MySpace status updates? Did people even make outcries that public online then? We’re talking about the days when you had to make your Facebook status with an “is” to start it off.

“I’m just one Boo Boo follower among many,” he says. Who goes by Boo Boo online? I imagine it’s an old forum username, but Carl E. specifically mentions that she “accepted his request”. She apparently wanted more likes, but on Facebook? Who goes by Boo Boo on Facebook?

“You opened your door to a monster,” he says.

Clearly we aren’t going to understand the details of Carl E.’s super efficient Face-stalking routine so I shouldn’t waste too much time speculating.

Carl E. continues sociopathically:

“Statistically speaking, people who’ve endured severe childhood trauma, like getting diddled by one’s high school English teacher, don’t get better. A life of quiet desperation and consistent underachievement is what awaits you. That or suicide.”

He made an algorithm, see! That’s who the “others” mentioned in Part 4 were.

Anyway, Clare questions Carl E. far enough to reveal that he’s got Gas Station dude, er, JJ, locked in his trunk. He screams. Clare says not to hurt him.

“Geez, you two sound like regurgitated movie pablum,” Carl E. says, to which I’m like I KNOW, RIGHT??!?!?!

The cops arrive in the tunnel. Like 20 cars worth of cops. Clare puts her hands up and doesn’t get shot because again, she’s a white bitch.

Scene change to the police department, where they’ve got AN ENTIRE SWAT TEAM of officers watching Clare on video.

“The whole city is on red alert with a dead cop and that murdered Salvadorean woman. Everyone thinks it’s the second coming of Manson and friends, thanks to you and your bullshit.”

Okay, come on, seriously? Like there are gangs in L.A., right? I’ve played GTAV, which I realize isn’t an accurate portrayal but is likely a more real portrayal of L.A.’s crime underworld than this show. More hardcore shit goes on in L.A., and this was a visible minority murder we’re talking about. No way would the police be putting together a 10,000 officer task force for that kind of crime.

The interrogator wants some answers, but Clare requests her phone call. She gets her phone and dials.

“Phone sex again?” Carl E. asks. “You slut.”

Dane DeHaan’s got a great low voice, friends! Just being honest here.

“Is that how you picked them?” Clare asks, “the ones who shared their tragedies on social media?”

So Clare was publicly sharing this on Facebook? Did literally no one in her real life have a change of heart or understanding? Because if NOBODY was, why would she be so public about it? Most survivors wouldn’t be able to share their trauma WITHOUT a proper support network. I’ve seen one public sexual assault hearingtoo many to know that people don’t just share that kind of trauma “for attention”.

“I will break you,” he says. “No one beats the math.”

“None of the shit we put online is real,” Clare says. But is it, Clare? I thought you weren’t lying about the teacher stuff? Stop confusing me!

Carl says he wants to prove the algorithm of people’s online habits correctly so he can rule the world, but uh, Cambridge Analytica already did that. Clearly he’s thinking about more than controlling elections and selling people weird shit via Wish, but we’re getting into some cartoon evil villain territory now, Carl E.

Dude can barely kill a street vendor and he wants to rule the world?

“Who needs God when you’ve got a fucking algorithm?” he asks.

Clare gets tough for a moment, insisting that she beat his math, but then she pleads like Rapunzel, begging Carl E. to let JJ go. Then she’ll do anything. But a deal like that would mess up the algorithm, so no deal.

“You now how this ends, Boo Boo?” he asks.

Tension piano builds up the power.

“You go to fucking jail,” Clare responds.

Carl hangs up and the interrogator returns. “He took the bait,” she says. “We got his location.”

The Stranger: Part 10 Thoughts

We are now in a thriller, friends!

Right from the beginning, this thing had serious Red Eye vibes, and with the sexual trauma aspect and stalking being introduced, we are right back in it.

EXCEPT this thriller has waaaaay too much cop interference now. (Can Carl E. not hack into the police network, BTW? Is he not listening to Clare in the interrogation room? Wasn’t that what the interrogator’s original spiel was for, was to BAIT Carl E? Are those cams not still able to be hacked post-call with Carl E.?)

And like, are the cops gonna just shoot Carl E. to death? Because if that’s how this thing ends I will not be a happy lady. We need one last high tension fight and no stupid cops. Sidney Prescott didn’t endure timeless murder attempts spanning over a two decades with an ineffective police force behind her to give us a thriller where the final girl to need the dumb cops to finish the job.

ESPECIALLLY IN A TECH THRILLER.

So yeah, we’re winding down, we’re getting to the final match. I liked the phone calls and the reintroduced intimacy between our two characters. I hate that JJ has to be Clare’s ambition to jump into defense-mode, though. It’s not gonna do a whole lot for her character arc, especially because JJ didn’t even #believewomen like he probably could have had the opportunity to do if Part 9 had a little breathing room.

Anyway, until next time!

The post Quibi’s THE STRANGER Recap: Part 10 appeared first on REBECCAJONESHOWE.COM.

Quibi’s THE STRANGER Part 10 Recap

I discovered today that Quibi’s The Stranger is actually 13 episodes long, which will extend this night-long horror into 6AM of whatever fictionalized version of a non-pandemic 2020 this is. Last episode gave us a breakup scene between Clare and the character formally known as Gas Station dude. We also learned his name is JJ.

FINALLY! Plot stuff is happening in The Stranger Part 10!

Part 10: 4AM

Clare walks down a rather empty L.A. tunnel, choosing only to utilize the pink dog leash from JJ’s lousy disguise kit. I like the break in time here because I can buy into Clare’s character shift more easily. A car nearly hits her and then the phone chimes to life.

Sadly, it’s not with Carl E’s ringtone, but SURPRISE!, it’s none other than Carl E. who’s had three episodes without a speaking role, so his Pete Buttigieg impression is PRIMO now.

We get hot into the dialogue.

“It’s your imaginary firend, Clare,” he says.

“I’m not crazy,” Clare says. “You’re just trying to make me think I’m going crazy.”

“Oh, like your high school teacher did?”

Whoa! So we add a little gaslighting into the mix. Is Carl E. gaslighting Clare into believing she was originally gaslit by her teacher? This show doesn’t have enough episodes to go that deep, so Carl has to be real at this point. Anyway, we go a little deeper into Clare’s background and it’s your standard disturbing affair “hot for teacher” affair. Carl E. gets nice and graphic about “desk-fucking” event he read about online.

Clare nearly breaks but lifts the phone back to her mouth. “Fuck you,” she says.

“Now, we’re talking!” Carl E. responds.

Clare defends herself, admits how she lost everything in the aftermath, which makes Carl reason that all the rumors he read about online were true. He asks why Clare lied and she says it was because nobody believed her anyway.

Carl E. then goes on his Netflix documentary ramble about how you can find anything you want about anybody on the Internet. BOOM, the show’s theme in a line of dialogue! Carl E. explains that he’s been following Clare online her whole life.

And I gotta wonder, how long is this? How old is Clare? She looks late 20’s to me but the teacher affair happened in high school, which would have been ten whole years before. So MySpace days? Was Carl following her damn MySpace status updates? Did people even make outcries that public online then? We’re talking about the days when you had to make your Facebook status with an “is” to start it off.

“I’m just one Boo Boo follower among many,” he says. Who goes by Boo Boo online? I imagine it’s an old forum username, but Carl E. specifically mentions that she “accepted his request”. She apparently wanted more likes, but on Facebook? Who goes by Boo Boo on Facebook?

“You opened your door to a monster,” he says.

Clearly we aren’t going to understand the details of Carl E.’s super efficient Face-stalking routine so I shouldn’t waste too much time speculating.

Carl E. continues sociopathically:

“Statistically speaking, people who’ve endured severe childhood trauma, like getting diddled by one’s high school English teacher, don’t get better. A life of quiet desperation and consistent underachievement is what awaits you. That or suicide.”

He made an algorithm, see! That’s who the “others” mentioned in Part 4 were.

Anyway, Clare questions Carl E. far enough to reveal that he’s got Gas Station dude, er, JJ, locked in his trunk. He screams. Clare says not to hurt him.

“Geez, you two sound like regurgitated movie pablum,” Carl E. says, to which I’m like I KNOW, RIGHT??!?!?!

The cops arrive in the tunnel. Like 20 cars worth of cops. Clare puts her hands up and doesn’t get shot because again, she’s a white bitch.

Scene change to the police department, where they’ve got AN ENTIRE SWAT TEAM of officers watching Clare on video.

“The whole city is on red alert with a dead cop and that murdered Salvadorean woman. Everyone thinks it’s the second coming of Manson and friends, thanks to you and your bullshit.”

Okay, come on, seriously? Like there are gangs in L.A., right? I’ve played GTAV, which I realize isn’t an accurate portrayal but is likely a more real portrayal of L.A.’s crime underworld than this show. More hardcore shit goes on in L.A., and this was a visible minority murder we’re talking about. No way would the police be putting together a 10,000 officer task force for that kind of crime.

The interrogator wants some answers, but Clare requests her phone call. She gets her phone and dials.

“Phone sex again?” Carl E. asks. “You slut.”

Dane DeHaan’s got a great low voice, friends! Just being honest here.

“Is that how you picked them?” Clare asks, “the ones who shared their tragedies on social media?”

So Clare was publicly sharing this on Facebook? Did literally no one in her real life have a change of heart or understanding? Because if NOBODY was, why would she be so public about it? Most survivors wouldn’t be able to share their trauma WITHOUT a proper support network. I’ve seen one public sexual assault hearingtoo many to know that people don’t just share that kind of trauma “for attention”.

“I will break you,” he says. “No one beats the math.”

“None of the shit we put online is real,” Clare says. But is it, Clare? I thought you weren’t lying about the teacher stuff? Stop confusing me!

Carl says he wants to prove the algorithm of people’s online habits correctly so he can rule the world, but uh, Cambridge Analytica already did that. Clearly he’s thinking about more than controlling elections and selling people weird shit via Wish, but we’re getting into some cartoon evil villain territory now, Carl E.

Dude can barely kill a street vendor and he wants to rule the world?

“Who needs God when you’ve got a fucking algorithm?” he asks.

Clare gets tough for a moment, insisting that she beat his math, but then she pleads like Rapunzel, begging Carl E. to let JJ go. Then she’ll do anything. But a deal like that would mess up the algorithm, so no deal.

“You now how this ends, Boo Boo?” he asks.

Tension piano builds up the power.

“You go to fucking jail,” Clare responds.

Carl hangs up and the interrogator returns. “He took the bait,” she says. “We got his location.”

The Stranger: Part 10 Thoughts

We are now in a thriller, friends!

Right from the beginning, this thing had serious Red Eye vibes, and with the sexual trauma aspect and stalking being introduced, we are right back in it.

EXCEPT this thriller has waaaaay too much cop interference now. (Can Carl E. not hack into the police network, BTW? Is he not listening to Clare in the interrogation room? Wasn’t that what the interrogator’s original spiel was for, was to BAIT Carl E? Are those cams not still able to be hacked post-call with Carl E.?)

And like, are the cops gonna just shoot Carl E. to death? Because if that’s how this thing ends I will not be a happy lady. We need one last high tension fight and no stupid cops. Sidney Prescott didn’t endure timeless murder attempts spanning over a two decades with an ineffective police force behind her to give us a thriller where the final girl to need the dumb cops to finish the job.

ESPECIALLLY IN A TECH THRILLER.

So yeah, we’re winding down, we’re getting to the final match. I liked the phone calls and the reintroduced intimacy between our two characters. I hate that JJ has to be Clare’s ambition to jump into defense-mode, though. It’s not gonna do a whole lot for her character arc, especially because JJ didn’t even #believewomen like he probably could have had the opportunity to do if Part 9 had a little breathing room.

Anyway, until next time!

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Quibi’s THE STRANGER Recap: Part 9

Oooooh, friends we finally get some ANSWERS in Part 9 of The Stranger. Check it out on Quibi (which is offering a 90-day free trial until April 30th). When we left in Part 8, Carl E. joined the dance party at the back-alley nightclub late and ready to murder Clare. Let’s see where things go in Part 9.

I’m also out of promo images for each episode and Quibi won’t allow you to take screenshots, so here we are with an irrelevant still from Part 4.

Part 9: 3AM

Carl E. could use a shower. He approaches Clare in the nightclub but a bunch of ladies think he’s still sexy, bloodstained hoodie and all. They fondle him up and he tries to evade their advances.

Then Gas Station dude finds Clare and pries her out through ANOTHER SECRET CLUB DOOR that leads out through a nail salon.

WTF aside, they catch a taxi.

“I swiped his phone,” Gas Station dude says, FINALLY putting his hardcore tech skillz to good use. He books them a room at The Rosslyn and the cab heads out.

We get one quick scenery shot of a billboard for a company called Collateral Protection Services which features in image of a hooded man with the lame slogan “Protect your Identity”. This may or may not prove important but I thought the shot too obvious to ignore.

The Rosslyn looks like the kind of place Dan Bell should check out for Another Dirty Room. I like the set but it looks more of an apartment than a hotel room. There’s also a screaming baby somewhere in the lobby that really aggravates my maternal instincts. Like gaaaaaaaah!

The hotel has no wi-fi or cable, but Gas Station dude pulls off the TV antenna JUST IN CASE. Then a knock sounds on the door but it’s totally okay because it’s a care package from “4Chan meets TaskRabbit”, which I’ll accept is tech-dude speak for HELP.

WHY WASN’T THIS VERSION OF GAS STATION DUDE AVAILABLE IN PART 6?!?!?!

The care package includes some burner phones and a new disguise for Clare: a pink wig and some rainbow glitter sneakers and a bedazzled dog leash for Pebbles. And I’m like, why not go for a brunette wig and some brown shoes. Why draw MORE attention? Does 4Chan not have better disguise stylists? Also worth mentioning is the lack of clean clothes. And neither character takes a shower.

Fortunately, the care package ALSO includes a first aid kit, which Clare uses to deal with a wound on her foot. We don’t know what kind of wound. She doesn’t even clean her nasty feet off first, just goes to town with the alcohol and seethes a bit. Gas Station dude asks if she needs help and she shrugs him off, but YES, we inevitably get treated to the “sexy helping with a wound” scene.

We have to at this point. It’s a dumb cliche but when there’s a wound the “sexy helping with a wound” scene MUST HAPPEN. It’s important. Sadly, it’s no match for the post wolf-attack scene from Beauty and the Beast.

Gas Station dude sets up an appointment with a Saul Goodman-esque firm online. An attorney agrees to meet with them. All she needs is their full names. Clare hesitates, but but then gives it.

Clare Johnson. Which is the same name she gave to the Orbit operator in Part 3 to complain bout Carl E. It’s NOT, however, the name that Carl E. referred to her as in Part 2.

FUN FACT: It was Clare Scheherazade. A quick Google search leads us to an interesting little detail about that chosen surname.

After Gas Station dude magically heals Clare’s foot wound, Clare lays down.

“Why wouldn’t you give me your full name earlier?” Gas Station dude asks, just minute after that earlier moment happened.

Clare doesn’t answer, so Gas Station Dude, whose name is Jay Irfani, but everyone calls him JJ. (FINALLY!) gives her a burner phone with a tracker in it.

“Why?” Clare asks.

“Just in case I… I lose you,” formerly Gas Station dude JJ says. “I can always find you.”

The sappy music starts. Thankfully, we don’t have to cringe through one of those “tHeRe’S oNlY oNe Bed!?!” scenes because they both lay down back to back in their nasty clothes. They didn’t even wash their hands, yo. (I’m really sensitive to this stuff right now, but if you want a sexy hand washing scene or two, I have a story for you.)

Clare reaches behind her and I shit you not it totally looks like she’s trying to grab his ass. But she doesn’t, because JJ moves his hand up and they hold hands and it’s kind of cute but this is a Quibi show and WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS FILLER.

The rest of this episode falters because of this narrow time span.

The lawyer calls and JJ answers. The lawyer speaks while Clare sits up.

“Wait, I don’t understand.”

The lawyer won’t take the case. Turns out, Clare’s done this before. She accused her high school teacher of stalking her and she was lying. Clare doesn’t confess but she insists that Carl E. is real.

She claims that JJ saw him on the train. He heard the gunshots! (But did JJ see him in the video text? There’s no way Clare watched it IN THE CAR without JJ seeing it.) JJ ALSO CLAIMED TO HAVE SWIPED CARL E’s PHONE IN THE CLUB THIS EPISODE, so he clearly fucking saw him. I even checked the captions and JJ explicity said, “I swiped his phone.”

Major plot hole aside, JJ claims that he didn’t see anyone on the train.

“You didn’t shoot that cop’s tires you, did you? You fucking killed him, didn’t you?” he prods, spelling out the already obvious assumption.

Clare insist she isn’t crazy but JJ turns and leaves.

The Stranger: Part 9 Thoughts

Quibi’s short time span is reallllly becoming a burden. I can’t see this platform lasting, quite honestly, when writers are so limited with with they can do. Now, I’m a writer and I love minimalism. You can do so much with so little in prose but there’s too much that the film format needs to convey.

This movie isn’t breaking any format or genre here. This is a standard horror thriller, only diced up into tiny chapters. But these chapters are all flash fiction as opposed to real meaty chapters where we get to digest character. Not to mention, better deal with the effin’ huge plot hole of JJ’s perspective in this whole mess.

This episode gave us a nice reveal, wherein the viewers make the obvious shift from perceiving Clare as a valid narrator to an obviously unreliable one. And yes, it’s more well-done than Daenerys’ reversal in that season of Game of Thrones that shall be forgotten in the depths of Wikipedia, BUT STILL.

We deserve more time in this scene because it’s pivotal. Instead we get a bit of yelling and Clare saying “I’m not crazy!” over and over.

This isn’t the episode I expected. I don’t like it but it COULD have been redeemed if her had more time to believe in Clare and JJ’s connection in this “safe room” scene. Maybe then I’d care about JJ leaving. In this case, I’m glad he’s gone because this means we can finally see Carl E. again.

Is he real or not? Only three more episodes to find out!

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