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not a cult posted:2 episodes in and I'm not 100% sure what I think about the show but the presence of lines like "Unfortunately, you can't mount a bear fetus" is pushing me toward the positive side. It takes a bit to really get going, but the payoff is worth the effort. When my wife and I started watching it she was ambivalent to start but by the the time we reached the end it she had considered it one of the best shows out. The actors do an amazing job with their characters both hitting the comedic notes and selling the drama. I'm not sure how to even describe the characters as none of them are particularly likeable Brick seems to be one of the more decent ones and he was banging Regina to get back at his dad. Patty is a loving train wreck whose most interesting character trait is that she wants to be a decent person but when pushed into a corner just isn't. All of the characters are narcissists on some level only caring about others as far as those other affect them. Every time we see a moment of potential growth a characters nature will assert itself and they revert to form. I do admit to being somewhat disappointed with where they went with Bob A's sexuality. I liked the way that they had initially separated his behavior and love of fashion and feminine aesthetics from his sexuality. Having him "go gay or bi or whatever" while interesting and subversive in some ways was still disappointing in how it reinforced the stereotypes. I personally think that it would have been more interesting to have Bob B with his hyper-masculine "alpha male" personality be gay while having Bob A remain hetero-sexual (even though that would have denied us the Bob/Bob/Coralee 3 way). The show also does a really good job of ramping up the crazy while never quite jumping the shark, a trick that few shows manage to pull off. Insatiable walks the line ala Supernatural rather than driving past it in the way that Scorpion did. One of the more interesting aspects to me is how you can get invested in the characters even the most horrible and care what happens to them. Regina is a great character, she has absolutely zero redeeming qualities and is completely self aware of the fact in a way that's kind of refreshing. She's not likeable at all but you can't help but enjoy her character "everyone has their issues, take me for example I'm a horrible person" no rationalization, no trying to spin things in a way that makes her seem sympathetic just raw unadulterated self interest and as a result the least hypocritical character in the show. One thing that I would remind people is to remember that this show isn't intended to be a realistic representation of reality, it's basically a comic book world, where things resemble the world we live in but everything is just a little exaggerated and a little more twisted. That said the show hit's some very profound concepts, such as how being bullied and beaten down by society can result in a twisted psyche (Patty) how our lovely parents damage our psyche's while recognizing that their flaws were a result of their own hosed up family circumstances. Patty is a deranged train wreck, but you can see where it came from and unlike other similar shows who would have made the caterpillar turn into a beautiful butterfly and her have this mythical niceness once she emerges it recognizes that subjecting people to such abuse doesn't make them into nice people. Patty is an empowerment fantasy for the underdog, not the idealized virtuous empowerment fantasy where the downtrodden hero breaks out from her pupa and becomes a shining example of humanity, but the real one, the dark fantasy that everyone who's ever been poo poo on for being different has had where they have the power and can extract retribution against those who have wronged them. As a parent of a child with a host of mental problems I found Dixie's description of her disorders and how they affect her behavior very , well real, I've heard my own son describe his psychological differences in a similar manner. And her awareness of it makes her strangely sympathetic to me. The show is much better and smarter than it seems at first brush and the poor critical reception says more to me about how lovely critics are than anything about the show.
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Aug 17, 2018 19:27
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 22:12 |
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esperterra posted:I love how you don't realize just how far gone Patty is 'til it hits you in the face in the finale. With a crowbar. Yeah, that last line. I had kind of wondered at why we never saw her dealing with Stella Rose after freeing herself from the cuffs and put a whole different interpretation to her comment about having gone to a really dark place to escape (which at first one just thought was using ding dong stuffing to lubricate her hands out of the cuffs). esperterra posted:e: also agreed re: Bob A but I still really love the way they handled it. It helps that the other characters involved are so drat good. Yeah it was definitely a minor quibble, all three actors are very talented and sell it beautifully. I was just a little disappointed that they dropped the initial conceit about Bob A's character being so comfortable with his own sexuality that he didn't feel any compulsion to conform to gender norms, so having it turn out that he had just been in denial of his own sexuality all along just seemed cheap and easy. That along with how rapidly his animosity and resentment for how Bob B was pretty much instantly erased by the magic of Gay sex strained my suspension of disbelief a fair amount. That said Dallas is so good in the role that he still sold it in the end.. But I get that it was necessary from a narrative standpoint in order to bring things full circle for the final as well as maintaining the show's central premise of never letting the characters have an unambiguous "win".
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Aug 17, 2018 20:18
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