Finally Letting You In

So the final episode of Dollhouse finally aired last night, Epitaph 2 (son of Epitaph). This show really grew on me after a very shaky beginning. There was only one episode in the second season that I found irredeemable– “Instinct,” you can slink off in shame any time now. As TWOP put it:

If we wanted to watch a Lifetime movie of the week, we’d look up what channel Lifetime is and watch one. (Just kidding — we know what channel Lifetime is. They have Runway now!) So when we realized that Echo had been glandularly altered to breast-feed a baby, grow jealous of the dead wife she had replaced and flee because she thought her baby was in danger, we sat back and waited for the dramatic standoff with a knife.

But mostly the season was intriguing and well-plotted and genuinely surprising. Personally, I was very pleased that after all the “Caroline is special!” business, which was a seriously egregious offense of telling and not showing, it was gratifying that the only special thing about her turned out to be her DNA. (Although in E2 one of the tech heads gets beaten up and is all “She’s soooooo cool.” Whatever, show, you can keep selling, it doesn’t mean I have to buy.)

I got most of what I wanted. Our crew saved the world after (some of them) ruined it, but the ones that lived were too damaged to enjoy it. That seemed right to me, kind of a counter-point to the forced cheer of the final episode of Buffy when the Scoobies ignored the deaths of Anya and Spike and chirped that it was time to go to the mall, as if seven seasons of growth had never happened.

How could any of these people make it in the new world, knowing what they’ve done? Being the only ones who remember? Topher blew himself up restoring everyone to their original personalities. Paul died in battle, which was fine with me, since I never liked his smug, arrogant ass anyway. But in a genuinely affecting turn that I didn’t see coming, Alpha gave Echo Paul’s imprint, and she incorporated him, finally letting him in, and assuring him they’d have time to get to know each other.

I’m not made of stone, people, I found that to be just ridiculously romantic. Still though, you get the impression that Echo is really not made for this post-Dollhouse world, so this is the only part of her future that isn’t bleak. (Also, what’s with the grey streak in Echo’s hair? In 2020 she should be maximum 35. I guess she’s had a hard life.)

Priya and Tony ended up together, reconciled, with the most adorable child in the history of children. I feel very Adam and Eve about them, and their child is the product of a technophile and a technophobe, which seems fitting for the future of the human race, as it moves beyond the age of dolls and imprints.

So who’s the biggest loser? Caroline, I guess. She never got her body back (god, that phrase is so tainted by tabloids that I feel like I’m talking about Kardashian after giving birth or Jennifer Aniston’s “revenge body,” because after all, if you’ve been with Brad Pitt, everything you do afterward is about him.) so she essentially died making room for Echo. Potentially Alpha, who had been rehabilitated, but who might, on the reset, turn back into a killer.

I’ll miss this show, and I hope Joss Whedon gets a new one soon. Although maybe he could leave Summer Glau, every nerd’s favorite manic pixie dream girl out of it this time, yeah?

Women Who Date Monsters

I’ve been putting off watching the rest of season eight of Smallville for awhile because it got kind of boring, and believe me, my standards when it comes to Smallville are pretty low, I’m mostly in it for the hot guys and the homoerotic over under tones. Plus my dad is a big fan of classic comics, so I enjoy them for that reason too, WHATEVER I don’t have to justify myself to you!

A hundred years ago a friend of theboozetube, Erika noted a central feature of the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer (she was talking about the musical, but it applies more generally as well) which is “stuff that should be figurative is literal.” Smallville works the same way. In fact, in the season finale, Tess Mercer committed a grammar atrocity I didn’t realize could exist: “figuratively” abuse. I think we’re all familiar with “literally” abuse. You know, “When I got a C+ I literally died.” Um, no dude, you “figuratively” died. Anyhow, Tess was all, “You have to slay the proverbial beast, Clark!” But Doomsday is, literally, a kryptonian beast! Tess could have said literally.

But all of that is beside the point. The point is, our dear Chloe is an abusive relationship, take a gander at the extremely romantic creepy dialogue.

Davis aka human host of Clark’s seasonal kryptonian rival Doomsday: I tried looking at photos of you, I tried holding strands of your hair, none of it works! This thing inside me… it starts to claw its way out as soon as you leave! Chloe, I can’t be away from you now…. By accepting your help I’ve put you right in their crosshairs; what about when the cops find you?”
Chloe: Then we leave. We load up the car and never look back.
Davis: You’ve done more for me in a few weeks than anyone’s done in my entire life. I can’t ask you to run away with me.
Chloe:Then it’s a good thing you’re not the one asking.
Davis: You wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to anyone, not even Clark, can you do that? Can you honestly tell me that I am the most important person in your life?
Chloe: Davis. I would do anything for you.

Oh my. Davis is smooth. Not only is he effectively cutting Chloe off from everyone who cares about her, he’s arranging for her to think it’s her idea. As viewers we, like Chloe, are meant to understand that Davis and Doomsday may inhabit the same body, but they are not the same. Davis is a sweet, good EMT, Doomsday is the killer who abducted Chloe from her own wedding.

I was prepared to be really annoyed with this plot, because obviously I don’t think it’s women’s job to tame men’s rapist/killer natures. And like, if you’re dating someone and one side of them is sweet and loving but they have another side that is a killer/rapist DUMP THEM. People are not divided into sweet and human with a voluntarily repressed dark side.

Smallville seems to agree! Oliver and Clark both identify early on that it’s not only Doomsday that’s obsessed with Chloe: it’s Davis as well. In fact, Chloe and Clark do succeed into splitting Davis’s Kryptonian side from his human side, and after the split, when Chloe reconciles with her husband, Jimmy Olsen, Davis, as a full human being, with no remnant of Doomsday, kills Jimmy in a fit of jealous rage.

You cannot remove the abuser from the person you love. The abuser is not an excisable growth. Of course people can change, but not easily, instantly, or painlessly.

That was something I thought Buffy did very well, actually, with Spike and Angel, two vampires who were given back their souls. In neither case was Buffy like, “Oh yay me, monster’s gone, happy love times are ON!” Both had to work to earn her trust and both had to make painful changes to their personalities that took, in the case of Angel, several seasons. I have further thoughts on undead personalities that will save for a future post. (Specifically, I’d like to look at the first evil’s Buffy incarnation and why Angelus is so different from Angel when all the other vampires are so much like their person was.)

10 Things I Love About 10 Things I Hate About You

10. The Dad from the movie is the dad on the series. He had the second best line in the movie:* “What’s normal? Those damn Dawson’s river kids sleeping in each others’ beds and what not? I’ve got news for you. I’m down, I’ve got the 411, and you are not going out and getting jiggy with some boy, I don’t care how dope his ride is. Mama didn’t raise no fool.”

9. Shakespeare is name-checked at minute one and 35 seconds. (“Beguile… big word, Shakespeare.”)

8. Kat has the smart mudflap girl hanging from her rearview. I’m in favor feminist protagonists, although you know, it is Taming of the Shrew, and Kat can be mean for real. (She mocks some girls to their faces for needing male attention. Uh, why wouldn’t they? Misogyny is real. Don’t blame the victims of sexism for sexism.) And no, not all feminists are super-nice or patient and kind, but it’s hardly like we have a plethora of small screen heroines. TV characters who use the F word are… Donna from that 70s Show and… um… yeah. Even Buffy doesn’t call herself a feminist.

7. So many spectacular one-liners like: “Your booty needs to pop like that whitehead on your chin!”

6. Ethan Peck, who plays Patrick Verona, also played young Kelso on That 70s Show (they grow up so fast!) Anything that reminds me of Kelso is all right by me.

5. Nicholas Braun, who plays Cameron (who loves Bianca), played Randy on Secret Life of the American Teenager, the manager of the Hot Dog Hut of Minorities Propping up White Ladies, the one who hit on Anne by asking if she’s a natural redhead. It’s my list, SLAT can come before That 70s Show if I want it that way.

4. “I’m not skipping home to scribble in my journal that maybe you’re a vampire.” Ha! FACED Edward Cullen!

3. The game Rock Band as a seduction technique. Friends, I have tried to use this, I have high hopes it can be deployed well, but neither I, nor the mailwoman managed it.

2. Kat and Bianca Stratford are originally from Ohio in this version, which is mostly just great to Doostyn and me. Like we always say, “Great Lake, Great Time.”

1. Kat’s new best friend, Mandella, seems to have a big ol’ lesbian crush on Kat. I love this development! It is so rare for a character on a teen show to just be straight (heh) out lesbian, not experimenting after and before being “really” into dudes or, worse, girl-on-girl-to-turn-on-dudes. I think this is TVs way of denying that lesbians really exist, it’s either all for the guys or a short detour from the guys. It’s the chaste bro hug for the ladies.

And 4 Things I Hate About 10 Things I Hate About You:

4. Kat is getting the ugly makeover. The actress is clearly a pretty girl, but they are making her look tv ugly (probably for a later makeover, natch). This is so unnecessary! In the movie, Julia Stiles as Kat was smoking hot. But I guess we’re learning a valuable lesson about how feminists are ugly. (I say, while sporting a veritable thicket of leg hair. Believe me, I’m in favor of women not having to be hawt all the time, but somehow I don’t think that’s the egalitarian ideal the show is going for.)

3. As usual, the show promotes the poisonous idea of the Nice Guy. You know, he just loves the girl, and is dorky yet devoted. He deserves to win her, as a prize for his goodness! Unlike that mean jock who loves her for shallow reasons of status. (The nice guy usually (and definitely in this case) falls for her instantly based on, you guessed it, looks. Nice guys= patriarchal douches who think they’ve mastered their sexism.)

2. The “disgusting perv” who has a note from his parents saying he has gender confusion so he can use the ladies’ room. Kat asks: “Are you confused?” Disgusting Perv: “I’m confused about how to get into your pants.” Ugh. Bathroom panic is simultaneously so 80s and so last year. Neither Feminism nor widespread understanding of transgender issues will lead inexorably to straight, cisgender male pervs in the bathroom. God.

1. The head cheerleader is a black girl, which would be encouraging (I think modeling what you’d like to see in society on tv is a great way to get people used to ideas) since I love the idea that the most socially prized position needn’t go to the usual thin blonde white girl. But Chastity seems to be set up to take a fall so that Bianca (thin blonde white girl) can rightfully usurp her. And the idea that the already privileged are the only ones who deserve leadership positions is a lesson no one needs.

*The best line, of course, is the late great Heath Ledger’s “What is it with this girl? Does she have beer flavored nipples?” No joke, I quote this line ALL the time.

When Digging a Roadside Grave…

Samantha: Now, you’ll excuse me for saying this, but lately you’ve been jumping around like a crab in a steampot.

Jane Mancini: A what?

Samantha: It’s an expression. Right before they die, blue crabs, they get all desperate, and they’ll do anything they can to push the lid off the top so you gotta hold them down in there.

Jane: That’s disgusting.

Samantha: Yeah, it’s worth it, though, they taste great.

Does it taste as great as….. muuuuuuuurder?

Not since the Buffy musical episode have I seen such an epidemic of “stuff that should be metaphor turning out to be literal.”

If only when Jane had interred Richard, her former business partner and rapist, in his shallow roadside grave she had waited hold the steampot lid down on him.

As it is, he clawed his way out of his grave (just one hand in the S4 finale, but the whole drooling corpse in the S5 opener) and instead of doing the normal thing and calling the police, has opted to creepily leave the evidence (shovel, trench coat) in various places for Jane to see, probably so she’ll think she’s going mad MAD I say.  He should probably hold onto that stuff though, it seems like with fingerprints they’d have more than enough to put Jane and Sydney away for life– and this time not even wrongfully.