TV Time: The Americans 4.04

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The Americans 404

Source: youtube.com

Greetings, comrades! I decided to slightly change the format for this week’s post in order to start by talking about the first thing on everyone’s mind. I couldn’t possibly call that scene my favorite, so I needed to add a separate section to talk about it the way I wanted to. With all that being said, you will see MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THIS EPISODE…shortly.

Title: Chloramphenicol

Most Important Scene: Nina’s death
There’s been a trend over the last few years of trying to shock viewers into thinking they’re watching good television. However, shock value doesn’t always equal strong storytelling. I think so many shows have been killing off and teasing about killing off major characters at this point that it’s easy to become desensitized to death on television. After a while, it all starts to feel like a big, gratuitous pile of bodies offered up at the altar of televised drama.

But Nina Sergeevna Krilova isn’t just another character to add to that pile. Her death was shocking in some ways and completely inevitable in others. But the important thing to remember is that it mattered. It mattered for her character, and it mattered for the show.

As Nina’s story became more isolated following her imprisonment in Russia, it became clear that one of two things had to happen: Nina would somehow make it back to America, or Nina was going to die. I should have seen her death coming—between the symbolism of her dream that looked like it was taking place in a funeral parlor with all the flowers and the sheer fact that getting Nina back to America would take a kind of suspension of disbelief that this show never calls for. There was no other way for Nina’s story to end, but that didn’t stop me from hoping—especially in this episode—that she would be spared. It didn’t help my sense of irrational hope that this episode focused on Oleg’s quest to free her, and I always connected more with his relationship with Nina than her relationship with Stan. I thought if anyone could get her out, Oleg might have a chance.

And I kept hoping until the last possible moment. I knew Nina’s dream was just a dream from its gorgeous lighting, but it still messed with my mind—because my thought as Nina was being sentenced was that she was going to wake up, and this would be the nightmare to contrast her good dream. However, the team behind this episode left no cheeky tease about her possibly surviving. There was no cliffhanger with whether or not she actually died. We saw the blood pool around her head. We saw the man check her pulse. We saw the guards wrap her lifeless body in burlap. Nina is dead, and I’m glad they left us with no doubts about that. The drama comes not from wondering if she’s really dead but from what her death will mean for the show and its characters going forward.

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Fangirl Thursday: Coming Home

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American_Idol_logo

When a television show you love ends, it can feel like leaving home. But when a television show ends years after you stopped really loving it, it can feel like hearing that the house you grew up in—but have since moved far away from—is going to be torn down. You might not have the same connection to that place anymore, but you still feel that loss, and that loss makes you think about who you were when you lived there and how much has changed since then.

I haven’t watched American Idol in years, but for a brief time, that show and its fandom were my home. So before it ends tonight, I wanted to look back—not so much at the show itself (because people far more talented than I am have done that already) but at its impact on my own life as a fangirl.

I was an Idol devotee for its first two seasons. I had a picture of Justin Guarini in my high school locker and worshipped Kelly Clarkson. (Let’s be honest: I still worship Kelly Clarkson.) I saw the Season Two contestants on tour, and, yes, I will admit to casting more than one vote for Clay Aiken. That show was something my family—even my extended family—wanted to watch and talk about together, which was rare at the time.

But as time passed, I drifted away from Idol, only returning for occasional episodes and each season’s finale. In fact, it was during the Season Eight finale that I saw Kris Allen and Adam Lambert perform “We Are the Champions,” and I knew right away that I was in trouble. Allen had the cute, singer-songwriter vibe I always adore, and you had to be crazy not to be drawn to Lambert’s incredible voice and magnetic stage presence. When coupled with the genuine friendship I saw on display when Kris was named the winner, I knew it was only a matter of time before I fell down an Internet rabbit hole, trying to catch up on everything I missed during the season.

During my trip down that rabbit hole early in the summer of 2009, I encountered a LiveJournal community about American Idol, and it felt like finding a home. The people there were smart, funny, and just as obsessed with the show and its contestants as I was. It was the same magical feeling I got when I discovered my first Star Wars fan site and visited MuggleNet for the first time. I didn’t feel alone anymore. But I didn’t have much experience with actual fandom participation. Sure, I’d posted on message boards about So You Think You Can Dance and even had my own blog about my hometown hockey team, but this was bigger and crazier than a message board and much wider in scope than the Buffalo Sabres fandom. I was scared to make that jump from lurker to participant in the discussions.

But then it hit me: I wanted to be a part of this. I didn’t want to watch everyone else having fun and making friends like I did in the Alias fandom back when I was in high school. I wanted to have fun and make friends myself. So the night of the first stop on the Season Eight tour, I stopped lurking and started commenting, and I never looked back.

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TV Time: Once Upon a Time 5.16

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Title Our Decay

Two-Sentence Summary When Hades gets Rumplestiltskin to open a portal between Storybrooke and the Underworld, Zelena, her daughter, and Belle are all brought to the realm of the dead, leading to revelations for both Rumplestiltskin and Belle and Hades and Zelena. The latter pair of characters is the focus of the flashbacks, which reveal Hades own plan for vengeance against a sibling and the love that made him reconsider his plans.

Favorite Lines
Zelena: Who the hell are you?
Hades: Who the hell am I? That question is more appropriate than you think.

My Thoughts Well that episode was just full of surprises, wasn’t it?

At a time when spoilers are readily available and episodes seem to be discussed and analyzed in intricate detail long before they actually air, it’s nice to still be surprised sometimes. And it’s nice to know that after five seasons, Once Upon a Time can still surprise me—not just by the twists and turns of its plot but by the unexpected emotional reactions I end up having.

“Our Decay” was a surprising episode on all fronts. But it wasn’t an out-of-character episode for this show. In fact, its surprises came from the way it took many of the show’s most important themes—self-definition, choice, love vs. power, family (specifically motherhood), and hope—and reflected them through new lenses.

Each storyline in this episode was connected through the theme of selfless love. True Love isn’t selfish. It’s the recognition that sometimes you have to sacrifice what you want for what the person you love needs; it’s the belief that the person you love always deserves their best chance, even if that’s not with you and even if you have to go to great lengths to secure that best chance. And that’s never more evident on this show than it is in the relationships between parents and children.

One of the biggest surprises of this episode was the way it made us truly care about Zelena as a mother. Before “Our Decay,” I never really believed that she actually cared about her baby beyond her daughter’s potential to love her (which was a selfish way of looking at parenthood rather than a selfless way of viewing it, though it made sense considering her history of abandonment and her deep-rooted mommy issues). And even at times in this episode, I found myself rooting against her and hoping Regina and Robin would get the baby away from her. However, through an amazing performance by Rebecca Mader and smart writing that paralleled some of this show’s most poignant scenes, it became clear to me that Zelena does truly love her daughter.

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Scandal 5.16: “The Miseducation of Susan Ross”

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Let’s all welcome back Laura, who’s returned to NGN to offer her take on Scandal as the show heads into the home stretch!

Hi folks! Sorry for the long hiatus from these Scandal posts; I’ve been dealing with some health issues. But I’m back now, and boy do I have a lot to say about where this show has been going in the second half of the season!

White hats came and went and came back again in this episode of Scandal. For a while, I thought my headline for this post would be “Olivia’s White Hat Gone for Good.” I’m thrilled the episode proved me wrong, although it did it in a way that took some of the choice out of Olivia’s hands. She fully intended to expose Susan’s secret and go ahead with her baby daddy’s interview until the moment she learned he’d hanged himself in prison. It wouldn’t be as much of a story without Ronny there to back up the paternity claims, which, in some ways, made it a lot easier for Olivia to put the white hat back on. Still, she deserves some credit; she plans to keep that hat on moving forward so she can end the campaign “with dignity.”

When Fitz and Huck are on the same side and have the moral high ground, telling you that you’re crossing a line, you know it’s time to rethink your actions. Olivia crossing that line did cause Ronny’s suicide—a fact that gets glossed over in her final conversation and drink with Fitz. She didn’t put the white hat back on in time to prevent that tragedy. Hopefully that fact will stick with her.

Speaking of Fitz, he seems to have undergone a profound transformation. I’ve always been a vocal supporter of Team Jake, but now that Jake’s working with Papa Pope, he’s starting to bring out the worst in Olivia instead of the best like before. And Fitz, who I originally thought brought out all of Olivia’s least desirable traits (not to mention I hated how he controlled her), is now pushing her to be a better person. Not sure I’m entirely ready to give up on Jake and join the Olitz fans, but that may change if this trend continues.

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The Best Thing I Saw on TV This Week (3/27-4/3)

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This week in television started off strong on Sunday with a powerful examination of Killian’s character on Once Upon a Time. On Monday, Jane the Virgin gave me plenty of reasons to reach for my tissues (especially with the new storyline its opening up for Petra), and early frontrunners are starting to separate from the pack on Dancing with the Stars. Tuesday’s episode of The Flash was a time-traveling adventure, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine borrowed just the right amount from Parks and Recreation‘s excellent “Two Parties” episode. Also on Tuesday, tensions continued to rise in The People v. O.J. Simpson‘s penultimate episode. Finally, Wednesday’s episode of The Americans ensured that I’ll never be able to go to EPCOT again without thinking of Pastor Tim, Glanders, and Elizabeth’s dreams of Odessa.

There were some incredibly powerful statements made on television this week—from Killian finally saying he deserves to be saved on Once Upon a Time to Philip telling Elizabeth that he wants to run on The Americans. However, nothing could top the dramatic force of the breathtaking moments in The People v. O.J. Simpson in which both Christopher Darden and Marcia Clark are threatened with being held in contempt of court.

That explosive scene was the perfect example of how to make rising tension pay off. Darden’s outburst felt cathartic after weeks of mounting pressure and increasing failures for the prosecution. Sterling K. Brown might not have the profile or fame of the other actors on this show, but he is every bit their equal in terms of the power of his performance.

And that explosive reaction from Darden was followed up by one of my favorite moments so far on what I believe is one of the best shows on television right now: when Marcia Clark’s own frustrations boiled over, putting her in jeopardy of also being held in contempt, to which she replied (with pitch-perfect delivery by Sarah Paulson): “Shall I take off my watch and jewelry?” Because I don’t remember much about the trial, I had no idea this moment was coming, so when it did, I was blown away—not just by the moment itself but by the performances that made it resonate and the direction that made it almost unbearably tense. While so much of this scene’s brilliance came through in strong line readings, there was also so much being said in silence. Brown and Paulson are so good in their characters’ unspoken moments of connection and partnership, and this was another scene that showed that aspect of their palpable chemistry off to its fullest extent.

The People v. O.J. Simpson ends this week, and, while I know how the story ends, I’m still waiting with bated breath to see what these actors do with it. That’s when you know a show is great and a cast is masterful.

What was the best thing you saw on TV this week?

Four Years of Fun and Feelings

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Today, Nerdy Girl Notes turns four years old. In my first post on this site, I wrote a sentence that I still believe with every fiber of my being:

I can’t imagine a better, more fulfilling life than the life of a nerdy girl.

A lot of things can change in four years. And a lot of things have changed over the last four years—not just for NGN as a site but for me as a person. But my goal from the start has always been to keep NGN moving forward, and I’d like to think I’ve done that—moving forward in the process of becoming not just a better writer but a better version of myself through running this site.

When I look back on some of my oldest NGN posts, I’m struck by how much distance I kept between myself and what I was writing about. I was afraid to get too personal—and the secret is, sometimes I still am. It’s scary to be vulnerable, it’s scary to talk about how much something means to you, and it’s scary to talk about yourself through a medium that makes that writing available to anyone who wants to read it and comment on it. In my quest to be as open as I can be in my writing, I’ve discovered that emotional honesty is a double-edged sword. It allows you to form genuine connections with people through your writing, but it also allows people who don’t like a particular thing you’ve written or an opinion you’ve shared to believe they can judge you as a person because of it. There have been plenty of occasions—this year perhaps more than any other—where it’s felt easier to just hide behind a more impersonal approach to writing or to just stop writing altogether. Because writing with honesty and vulnerability is hard.

But to quote one of my favorite movies, A League of Their Own: “It’s supposed to be hard…The hard is what makes it great.” And it is great. And part of the reason it’s so great is because it’s scary. Running this site and sharing my writing with all of you has made me feel braver than I could ever have hoped to feel. And this year I’ve felt braver than ever before.

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TV Time: The Americans 4.03

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the americans 403

Source: mstarsnews.musictimes.com

Title: Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow

Episode M.V.P.: Keri Russell
“Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow” made me think a lot about the pilot of The Americans and how things have changed for its characters since that first episode. And no character has changed more since her first appearance than Elizabeth Jennings. When we first met her, she was a woman who put her mission above everything else, and Keri Russell was so good at showing Elizabeth as steel personified—protecting herself from the inside out. But time changes people, and so does love. Elizabeth isn’t who she was when we first met her, but she’s not unrecognizable like she could have been if a lesser actor had been tasked with her transformation. Instead, Russell has showed us—in this episode perhaps better than any other—that the change in Elizabeth has come from letting herself have emotions and reactions that she would have previously compartmentalized to focus on the best way to serve her cause. They’ve always been a part of her, but she’s showing them now, and it’s added a wonderful layer of depth to Russell’s already nuanced performance.

Elizabeth has previously used her missions as ways to let hidden parts of her see the light (like when she opened up to her mark in Season Two about being raped), but this episode was the first time we saw her genuinely have fun while on a mission. And it wasn’t Patty the potential Mary Kay salesperson having fun. It was Elizabeth having fun. It was Elizabeth bonding with Young Hee (who I already love) and forming what felt like a sincere connection and not just a front for whatever Elizabeth’s endgame is. Russell did a masterful job of making me wonder how much of that dynamic is forced and how much is the beginning of a real friendship between two women who connect with each other as immigrants (even if Elizabeth can’t tell Young Hee she’s also an immigrant)? My gut reaction is that Young Hee has the potential to be Elizabeth’s Martha—there was something about the instant kinship Russell projected in the scenes between them that has me thinking it won’t be easy for Elizabeth to do something terrible to this woman for her job.

I loved seeing the sincerity in some of Elizabeth’s interactions with Young Hee contrasted with her interactions with Pastor Tim. Russell was brilliant in that confrontation, allowing us to feel how hard it was for Elizabeth to interact with him. It was uncomfortable, and it was supposed to be. And so much of that pitch-perfect uneasiness came from Russell’s fake smile and forced tone of voice. It takes a great actor to show someone struggling to give a good performance, and luckily, Russell is truly one of the greatest actors on television right now.

As the episode went on and Elizabeth wrestled with the lose-lose situation she and Philip were in, I found myself more and more captivated by Russell’s silent reactions to everything happening around her. Where there once would have been firm conviction in her eyes, there was sadness. Where she once would have pushed Philip away, she reached for his hand. In this episode, Elizabeth showed her feelings as she felt them—her uncertainty, her love, and her fear. They still may not be worn on her sleeve, but they’re visible if you know where to look (her facial expressions, her tone of voice, her body language). And that’s what makes them all the more affecting.

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Fangirl Thursday: The Best Seat in the House

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When you love television as much as I do, where you watch matters almost as much as what you’re watching. Everyone has their favorite place to watch their favorite shows. It can be an oversized chair in a room where friends and family gather to watch things together or a darkened bedroom where you escape with your laptop and Netflix.

Sometimes it’s a cozy couch with room for the people you love to share the shows you love. My couch has quite the reputation as a great TV-watching couch. It was where I cried when Castle walked away from Beckett to end Castle’s second season. It was where I spent a glorious few days hosting mini marathons of Parks and Recreation episodes when Heather came to Buffalo a couple of years ago. And it’s where I watch every episode of Once Upon a Time with my sister and my mom on Sunday nights.

My couch is an ideal place to watch television—it’s huge and comfortable and right in front of a big HD screen. However, it’s not my favorite place to watch television. That honor belongs to a corner of my kitchen where a small television stands next to a coffee pot and a bowl of fresh fruit.

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TV Time: Once Upon a Time 5.15

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COLIN O'DONOGHUE, JENNIFER MORRISON

Source: ABC/Eike Schroter

Title The Brothers Jones

Two-Sentence Summary When Killian reunites with his brother Liam in the Underworld, he discovers the truth about how they came to survive a shipwreck and join the navy in the past. Meanwhile, Henry’s quest to find the Author’s pen proves to be a potential key to defeating Hades.

Favorite Line “You can come home. You just have to forgive yourself. The thing is, no matter how many times I tell you—or anybody else does—you have to do it yourself.” (Emma, to Killian)

My Thoughts Heroes inspire others. Stories of their brave, selfless deeds are meant to fill us with a desire to follow in their footsteps. However, sometimes those stories hurt more than they help. When all we know about a person is their best—their highlights—then it can sometimes feel depressing rather than inspiring to hear their stories, because we know both our best and our worst—our errors as well as our highlights. If we never see someone struggle, then we sometimes come to believe that our normal, human struggles shouldn’t happen and that we should beat ourselves up over not being perfect—when, in truth, no one is.

That’s why the most inspiring stories are those of people who overcame struggles, who fought to be the best version of themselves. The stories we most often need are not stories of heroes who are never shown to do anything wrong but of people who make mistakes, have flaws, and are honest about every stumble and failure they have along the way as they grow.

Once Upon a Time is telling stories of those kinds of heroes. Even its characters who’ve seemed like paragons of good choices have made mistakes. None of them are perfect, and that’s what makes them interesting and inspiring. And that’s a lesson multiple characters learned in “The Brothers Jones”: Being a hero isn’t about being perfect; it’s about doing the best you can and being honest about those times when you struggle with doing the best you can. That’s how you inspire hope in others—by helping them see that everyone has flaws and makes mistakes, so they’re not beyond hope if they’re imperfect.

“The Brothers Jones” was a thematically rich episode of Once Upon a Time. Its most obvious theme was that of forgiving yourself, but there was another theme that came up in nearly every storyline this week that tied directly into the idea of forgiving yourself—and that was the danger of comparison. The only way to forgive yourself for being imperfect and for making mistakes is to stop comparing yourself to others, because we don’t often know anyone’s true story but our own.

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TV Time: The Americans 4.02

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Title: Pastor Tim

Episode M.V.P: Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell
While I liked last week’s season premiere, it didn’t grab me emotionally the same way “Pastor Tim” did, and I know exactly why: I’m always more interested in Philip and Elizabeth’s partnership than I am in their separate endeavors. Their marriage is what got me invested in this show in the first place, so I’m partial to episodes in which they spend the majority of the hour together—or at least working through parallel storylines. And so much of the reason I love those episodes is because they revolve around the best scene partners on television: Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell.

“Pastor Tim” was an episode that took Philip another step closer to his breaking point, and Rhys is doing such masterful work as his character gets pushed to the edge. You can feel the exhaustion in his body language, and you can hear the uncertainty and anxiety in the long pauses as he searches for the right words when he speaks. Philip is a man coming apart at the seams, and Rhys makes you believe that any moment could be the moment he breaks beyond repair. But what this episode showed is that Philip isn’t the only one struggling. Elizabeth is starting to question things, too—things she’d never questioned before. The tension in her posture when she met with Gabriel was pointed; in just the set of her shoulders and the steely look in her eyes she showed that Philip isn’t the only one doubting the Center now. Russell’s ballet training made her an actor who can effortlessly make the emotional something physical, and she used that ability brilliantly in the scene in which Paige hugged Elizabeth. The conflict in her between the loving mother and the agent who’d been betrayed was evident in every moment without her needing to say anything or project anything too obviously.

Russell and Rhys are the kind of actors who are so good at playing everything small that when they do have big moments, they matter. When Elizabeth lost her composure with Paige after she confessed, it reminded me of the moment when Philip yelled at Paige in Season Two’s “Martial Eagle.” We get so used to these characters speaking in controlled tones that when they yell, they make it count. They show the cracks in their steely façade in those moments, and this scene was especially powerful because Elizabeth hardly ever shows that kind of uncontrolled emotion. But that’s how high the stakes are right now—and how much stress she’s under.

Russell and Rhys are also the kind of actors that are great individually but even better together. In this episode, their interactions ranged from all-too-realistic fights to gorgeously tentative moments of vulnerability. They project such honest sincerity in their scenes together, and I love that it comes through in the smallest gestures: a shaky inhale before sharing a truth, turning toward the other in bed, or physically reaching out to the other when they can tell their partner is falling apart. It’s those small gestures that make this marriage feel real, and it’s all because of the two actors who’ve been tasked with bringing it to life.

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