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After work yesterday was really just a TV catch-up evening. We watched this week's episode of
Only Murders in the Building on Hulu, and then we got to the final two episodes of season two of
Euphoria, which I thought were spectacular—I loved the play-within-a-show construct, and in the end was genuinely moved by it. When Jules comes over to Rue after the play ends, to tell her she loves her, I cried. Shobhit actually asked me, "Why are you crying?" Uh. Because I have a pulse?
I think Shobhit can have a hard time understanding how something can be so moving to other people. Admittedly it's pretty easy to make me cry anymore, which sometimes can happen from something as minor as an ad. For the record, this scene was still genuinely moving. Still, it doesn't take much to turn on my waterworks, which I think is a pretty even mix of just getting older and softer, and the long effects of losing my mother, complicated as my relationship with her may have been.
Anyway. I think I'll just share the entire text I sent to the group chat with Gabriel, Lea, Mandy and Andy—having forgotten that among all of them, Lea is the
only one who has watched the show:
Okay so now I’m going to talk about Euphoria for a minute! We just finished season two, and I was kind of blown away by it, and even moved by the presentation of the play-within-a-show in the final two episodes. And even though I still think Nate is awful, that situation with his dad was a way for the show to present a specific scenario where I was actually on his side, which kind of amazed me. Also! Zendaya’s performance is astonishing. She’s 27 years old now, but she’s utterly convincing not just as a teenager but even in the flashbacks to even a few years younger at the time of Rue’s father’s death. Zendaya won an Emmy for both seasons and I think both were well deserved, but especially for this season
I didn't get much out of them in the group chat, mostly Gabriel, Mandy and Andy all saying why the intensity of the show was too much for them, in the mostly because of having kids in their own lives. I copied and pasted my text to send to Laney and that exchange was a lot more fun. Laney replied:
Yes, season 2 was amazing and that play, wow! I was going to mention it to you when we got together yesterday but I wasn't sure if you had seen that part yet. Another thing that we haven't talked about regarding Euphoria is the character Fez. Je was so endearing even though he was a drug dealer and the fact that the actor tragically died at the age of 25 just makes his performance even more poignant
Indeed the season began with an "in memory of"
Angus Cloud. HBO would have had to have added that well after season 2 ended, as that finished airing in late February of last year, and Angus Cloud just did a couple of months ago.
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After we finished
Euphoria, I went back to the bedroom to watch the new episode of
Ahsoka on Disney+. Honestly, I just can't manage to tap into the excitement over this live-action version of a "fan favorite" from the animated series I never watched. I still struggle with Rosario Dawson's performance.
I like the show fine, but frankly it's nothing special. Certainly nothing like
Andor, which was, like, in masterpiece territory. Still, the Star Wars expanded universe is starting to feel like it's expanded . . . enough. To be fair, there have been novels expanding that universe for decades, so it's not like this is a new thing. But, as a movie fan, when all we got was one movie every three years for a trilogy every couple of decades, any new Star Wars release felt actually special—novel, even. There just isn't anything novel about it anymore. It's starting to feel parallel to when we were into decades of endless releases of Westerns, to the point where it took a lot for them not to feel tired. (We have long since been also past this point with superhero movies. It doesn't exactly help that Disney now owns Marvel
and Star Wars, and is milking both with endlessly mediocre series releases.)
For the people with a long history with the Ahsoka character, there is a level of excitement that kind of makes viewers, in my opinion, turn a blind eye to the midocrity. And that's fine, good for them. I'm glad they're having a blast. I just don't seem to have the means to tap into that excitement. I'm just watching yet another show that is objectively not bad, but also no better than fine. At least, so far.
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[posted 12:27 pm]
