Fangirl Thursday: The Case for Crying

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do you cry

Hi, my name is Katie, and I’m a crier.

I cry all the time. I cry when I’m sad, when I’m happy, and sometimes when I’m really angry. I cry when I’m overwhelmed, when I’m scared, and sometimes when I’m really proud of myself or someone I love—or even someone I don’t know. And I cry all the time when I watch TV, go to the movies or theater, or read a book.

I think I’m supposed to be ashamed of that. I’m supposed to think that makes me weak and that I need to try harder to keep my emotions below the surface. But that’s never been who I am. And I’m done feeling bad about that.

I was only nine when a movie made me cry for the first time not because I was scared, but because I felt so deeply. It was an animated movie about cats in Old Hollywood called Cats Don’t Dance, and I cried so hard when it looked like the main cat was going to have to give up his dancing dreams to move back to his hometown that my mother had to turn the movie off and tell me things were going to be okay.

I feel things deeply; I always have. However, we’re taught from an early age that it’s dangerous to feel things deeply. We’re taught to be afraid of intense emotions. But the intensity with which we feel things and the ways we express how we feel are some of the most important parts of our collective humanity. Our emotions—even when they’re strong and sometimes overwhelming—are part of us. And that’s not something to be afraid or ashamed of. Instead, it’s something to understand.

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TV Time: Once Upon a Time 5.14

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Title Devil’s Due

Two-Sentence Summary In order to save Killian, Emma and Rumplestiltskin—who’s eager to get home to Belle for mysterious reasons—seek Milah’s help. Flashbacks to Rumplestiltskin and Milah’s past reveal more about their broken marriage and the deal he once made that threatens his future in the present.

Favorite Lines
Killian: You’re impossible.
Emma: And you love me for it.

My Thoughts
“I still see hope in your eyes.”

When Hades finally explained that this—the hope Killian still has—was the reason for his torture, it made perfect sense. If there’s one thing Once Upon a Time has always preached, it’s that heroes hold on to hope even when things seem hopeless and work to spread hope to those who need it, while villains often feel hopeless themselves and want others to feel that way, too. Hope is the heroes’ greatest weapon and the villains’ greatest enemy, so the villains will do whatever it takes to destroy hope. And that central conflict between those who spread hope and those who try to snuff it out played a major part in “Devil’s Due,” which was ultimately one of the most tragic episodes of Once Upon a Time in recent memory. (Yes, I would argue it was even more tragic than “Swan Song.”)

The tragedy of “Devil’s Due” came from the fact that sometimes hope isn’t enough. Sometimes you can’t escape your past. And sometimes you can’t get closure after you lose a loved one.

Lost souls were an important concept in this episode, and I don’t think there’s a better example of a lost soul than Milah. I’ve always been fascinated by her as a character because she’s seemed so complex, and all this episode did was add even more layers to her character. (Of course it added more layers to a fascinating female character; it was written by Jane Espenson, who literally never lets me down.)

Have I always agreed with Milah’s decisions? No. Have I always liked how she spoke to her husband after he came back from the Ogre Wars? No. Would I have done some things differently than she did? I’d like to think so. But that’s what makes her such a well-written character. I may not believe I would have done things the way she did them, but I completely understand her actions and the thoughts and feelings behind them. And who knows? If I was in her situation, maybe I would have handled things the same way. That’s the beauty of fiction; it asks us to be empathetic toward people who seem different from us. It asks us to walk in their shoes. And now, knowing what we know about Rumplestiltskin’s deal and Milah’s first meeting with Killian, I understand better than ever how she could leave her family to be with a man who gave her a choice when she felt all her choices had been taken from her.

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The Best Thing I Saw on TV This Week (3/13 – 3/20)

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I apologize for the long hiatus with these posts. Unfortunately, the job that pays the bills took up a lot of my Sundays over the last few months. But now that things have slowed down a little in that regard, I’m back and ready to talk about the high points in the last week of television with all of you! 

This week in television kicked off with a strong episode of Once Upon a Time (pun intended) on Sunday that introduced us to Hercules and reintroduced us to part of a main character’s identity that’s been missing for far too long. Monday gave us the season finale of The Bachelor, which ended with a proposal but wasn’t exactly a fairytale (or maybe I’m just not used to fairytales that involve a guy telling two women he loves them right until he has to make the choice of who to propose to). On Tuesday’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Jake helped Terry solve an old case and stand up to detectives in his old precinct, and Tuesday’s The People vs. O.J. Simpson was a case study in how to use dramatic irony to its fullest. (I wanted to scream “Don’t make him try on the glove!”) Wednesday featured a big Nashville wedding event, as Rayna and Deacon finally tied the knot, and the intense and suspenseful season premiere of The Americans. Finally, the start of March Madness provided college basketball fans with plenty of memorable moments, even if most of our brackets blew up in the process.

Those exciting March Madness games remind us every year not to count people out; it’s not over until it’s over. And that same lesson was presented in a surprising way on Once Upon a Time this week. I’ll admit it: I never expected Snow to find her spark again. I thought she would always be Mary Margaret, and it made me so sad that I tried not to focus on it too much—because it was hard to think about what had happened to my favorite character over the last few seasons of the show. So imagine my delight when Snow not only reclaimed her fighting spirit and her leadership abilities; she reclaimed the name I feared was lost forever. She became a woman of action again, an active participant in her own story instead of a passive supporting character in the stories of those around her. Seeing Snow choose who she wanted to be and how she wanted others to see her was inspirational. And the reactions of those who love her were perfect—from Regina’s “It’s about time!” and Emma’s proud smile to the swoon-worthy sincerity in Charming’s voice when he called his wife by her real name. It finally felt like my favorite character was back, and that moment gave me so much hope—hope that it’s never too late to remember your best self and to connect with that best self again. And when you do decide who you want to be, those you love will be there to support and encourage you.

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

TV Time: The Americans 4.01

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the americans 401

Source: blogs.wsj.com

Welcome back (or welcome to any newcomers!) to our weekly discussions of The Americans here at NGN! I can’t wait to write about another season of this incredible show and to discuss it with all of you. After you finish reading, remember to share your thoughts with us in the comments!

Title: Glanders

Episode M.V.P.: Alison Wright
“Glanders” was an episode that arranged the chessboard for the season to come, but in the middle of all the plot setup, there were still moments of startling emotion. I didn’t expect to cry during this season premiere. But two little words from Martha, delivered multiple times with such devastating grief and panic from Alison Wright, sent my tear ducts into overdrive.

“Oh no…”

While Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell deserve every word of praise sent their way (Rhys, in particular, was outstanding in this episode—a portrait of a rubber band pulled so tightly that it could snap at any moment.), Wright has become this show’s secret weapon. Martha is one of its most tragic characters, and so much of that comes from how realistic Wright has made her feel. And in the moment Philip revealed to Martha that he killed her coworker to protect her, I felt Martha’s fear and loss so acutely it was almost oppressive. Wright was at the center of a storm of emotions in that scene, and she grounded them all in a sincere vulnerability that was best reflected in that broken refrain of “Oh no…”

In that scene, I also felt Martha’s guilt, as she asked “What have I done?” with such heartbreaking horror. “Glanders” spent a lot of time dealing with characters wondering what their choices say about who they really are. Many of its main players were wracked with guilt, but perhaps none more than Martha in that moment. However, the most heartbreaking part of “Glanders” wasn’t Martha wondering what she’d done; it was Martha making the choice to continue doing it—to continue helping Philip despite knowing what he’s done. Wright broke me with her breakdown earlier in the episode, but what’s still haunting me today was her stoic acceptance of her continued role as Philip’s link to the FBI (which I’m sure was connected to the gut-wrenching gratitude she showed him when he opened up to her in such a small way about his past).

For so long, I wondered if Martha was going to have to die, but this—choosing to keep helping Philip even with the knowledge that he killed her coworker—might be worse. It’s like watching someone lose their soul in an effort to keep a relationship that’s not even real, and Wright is making every moment of that tragedy resonate with me on a visceral level.

Favorite Scene: Paige can’t say the Pledge of Allegiance
It’s not easy being a teenage girl and trying to carve out your own identity. It’s even harder when you’re a teenage girl who found out her entire life—and her parents’ lives as she knew them—is a lie. Just as Philip and Elizabeth’s story addresses universal questions about marriage and parenthood, Paige’s story addresses questions we all have as we grow up: Who am I? How am I different from my parents? What do I really care about? And it’s so heartbreakingly clear that Paige doesn’t know the answers to any of those questions anymore, which is such a change from the girl who was so strong in her convictions and her sense of self until she learned the truth about her parents last season.

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TV Time: Once Upon a Time 5.13

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JONATHAN WHITESELL, GINNIFER GOODWIN

Source: ABC/Eike Schroter

Title Labor of Love

Two-Sentence Summary As flashbacks reveal Snow’s connection to the young demigod Hercules, she works in the present to remind him of what he’s capable of, while also rediscovering what she’s capable of. The two heroes team up with Meg to bring down Cerberus, while Henry runs into an old foe with a new plan and Hades continues to find new ways to torture Killian.

Favorite Line “I’m saying I don’t want to be Mary Margaret anymore. I want to be Snow White again.” (Snow)

My Thoughts Once Upon a Time has many recurring themes: redemption and forgiveness, hope, love, family…But my favorite theme tackled on this show has always been self-definition. I’ve loved watching the way Emma’s line from Season One about punching back and saying, “No, this is who I am,” has been reflected in the journeys of so many of this show’s characters—from Emma herself to Regina and Killian.

“Labor of Love” put that theme in the spotlight once again, and it did so using a common motif for this show: the reclamation of a name. Names matter on Once Upon a Time. And in an episode that started with Killian using his given name first and his more common—but more villainous—name second, names mattered perhaps more than ever.

For so long, I’ve been decrying the use of “Mary Margaret” instead of “Snow White,” and it seems those who sit on the Once Upon a Time version of Mt. Olympus finally heard my pleas to bring back the name—and the identity—of my favorite character, the one who made me fall in love with this show and the one I relate to the most. I might be biased because of how much that name change meant to me, but I thought this was one of the strongest episodes in recent memory. It took one of the show’s most important themes and carried it through stories in the past and present that shed new light on a character who’d been stuck in the shadows for far too long.

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Guest Post: Join the Clone Club!

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One month from tomorrow (April 14) Orphan Black returns with its Season Four premiere. To celebrate, please welcome our newest NGN Contributing Writer Meera, who’s written a little something about why this show means so much to her.

orphan-black-season-2-finale

Every so often we come across a book, film, or TV show that leaves us in awe. One such TV show for me is Orphan Black, the Canadian TV show based on human cloning. It kicks off with protagonist Sarah Manning witnessing the suicide of a girl who looks just like her (Beth Childs). Sarah steals Beth’s wallet with the hope of taking up Beth’s identity to fix her messy life. This is where the mystery unfolds and chaos ensues. Sarah learns she is a clone, she meets her clone sisters (Cosima Niehaus, Alison Hendrix, and Helena), and a series of adventures unfold—which I am not going to get into because I’d rather you watch the show yourself. I am, however, going to get into why this show is so special to me and why it is so important for today’s day and age.

First, the show’s representation of women is, above all, realistic. The show has many female characters—from the clone sisters to scientists to mothers. The women are not just stereotypical “strong independent women;” they are that and so much more. We get to see the lengths a mother is willing to go to protect her child. We discover irresponsible women who change entirely when it is their child in danger. We’re introduced to women who get anxious and turn to alcohol and pills, and eventually go through rehab. We meet smart women who are excited by the tiniest scientific discoveries. We see women who love food, women who smoke pot, women who have been broken, and women who have been abandoned and are dealing with the repercussions of that. We watch women fall in love, fall out of love, and even crave love. We see women with heels, with dresses, and with sneakers and leather jackets. We see women in control, we see them being controlled, we see them take control, and we see them lose control. We uncover the vulnerabilities, the sacrifice, and all the other facets of these female characters that are present in women of all ages, and that is just beautiful.

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TV Time: Once Upon a Time 5.12

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Title Souls of the Departed

Two-Sentence Summary As Regina’s relationship with both of her parents is explored in the past and present, she begins to sew the seeds of hope in the Underworld. That hope will be needed, as the quest to save Hook is revealed to be even more challenging than initially feared.

Favorite Line “If you stay, you spread hope, and that’s the best thing anyone can do.” (Henry Sr., to Regina)

My Thoughts It all started with the tick of a clock…

The pilot of Once Upon a Time ended with a ticking clock and a smiling little boy, a symbol of the possibility that things could begin to change for the better and that hope had arrived in a place long thought to be without it. The 100th episode of Once Upon a Time also featured a ticking clock in its final minutes, serving once again as a symbol of positive change in a previously hopeless world. The difference this time was in the person smiling as the clock began to tick and hope began to spread. In the pilot episode, Regina was the villain keeping everyone in a state of hopeless stasis, but 99 episodes later, she was now the hero smiling at the possibility of restoring hope and happiness in a dark world.

“Souls of the Departed” showed how much Once Upon a Time has grown over the course of 100 episodes while still honoring the hopeful tone that has always been its hallmark. And it did so through the lens of Regina’s character growth. Did we need another flashback to the Regina/Snow war? Of course not. That story’s been told an exhaustive number of times. (Although it was nice to fill in the gaps concerning how Cora came to be in possession of a shrunken version of her husband.) But it served as a nice reminder of how far Snow and Regina’s relationship and Regina’s character in general have come since the days when the story told in those flashbacks was the only story to tell for those characters. And it’s always fun to see Lana Parrilla in full “Evil Queen mode,” complete with those gorgeous costumes.

The flashbacks also set up a very nice parallel between Emma in the Once Upon a Time pilot and Regina in the show’s 100th episode. I don’t think it was a coincidence that the writers chose to set this episode’s flashback on Regina’s birthday, just as the series started on Emma’s birthday. Emma and Regina have always been positioned as two sides of a coin, characters whose journeys reflect each other in fascinating ways. And just like when Emma’s decision to stay in the pilot made the clock move, Regina’s decision to stay in this episode did the same. Both of these women have grown from being loners to being part of a loving family, and their choices to stay and be a part of something instead of running away represent the hope that we can all find it in ourselves to stay and fight for what’s right when it feels easier and safer to leave.

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100 Episodes of Hope: Once Upon a Time’s Most Hopeful Moments

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OUAT

“Believing in even the possibility of a happy ending is a very powerful thing.”

Those words spoken by Mary Margaret Blanchard in the pilot episode of Once Upon a Time serve as the show’s mission statement. In a world that seems to be growing colder and more hopeless each day and in a media landscape that seems to be increasingly focused on antiheroes and darkness, Once Upon a Time proudly stands as a rare beacon of hope. For 99 episodes, it’s shown us that love is strength, that belief in others and in yourself can create magic, and that we all have the power be better than who we once were.

Once Upon a Time has helped its legions of passionate fans—myself included—believe in the possibility of a happy ending for ourselves. That will be this show’s legacy when all is said and done: the feelings of hope and happiness it inspired in those who watched it. And to celebrate the show’s 100th episode, which airs tomorrow night, I wanted to honor that legacy of hope and happiness by taking a look back at the show’s most hopeful moments—from the early days of Season One all the way through Episode 99.

1. Charming wakes up (1.03: Snow Falls)
“I will always find you.” Snow and Charming’s entire story is based on the hope that they will always find each other, that—no matter what dark forces separate them—they will always make their way back to each other. Not even the Dark Curse and a coma could keep them from each other, as we saw in one of the show’s best episodes, “Snow Falls.” As Snow read to a comatose Charming the story of how they fell in love (despite Snow having no idea it was their story she was telling), he grabbed her hand, proving that their love was once again strong enough to break through curses and bring them back to life. It wasn’t an easy road for Snow and Charming after he woke up, but that moment was a spark of hope that spoke to the power of True Love to do the impossible.

2. Henry wakes up (1.22: A Land Without Magic)
Emma breaking the Dark Curse with her True Love for her son remains Once Upon a Time’s defining moment. Not only did it teach us that romantic love isn’t the only true kind of love; it also taught us that even in the darkest moments, hope is not lost if there is love. Emma saved Henry not by fighting a dragon but by allowing herself to finally admit how much she loved him. By opening her heart to love—even when it meant incredible pain—Emma was able to break the curse that was cast on Henry and the curse that was cast on all of Storybrooke. This is the moment I always come back to whenever things look bleak on Once Upon a Time. It serves as my reminder that where there is love, there is hope.

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Agent Carter Life Lesson of the Week: Hollywood Ending

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Agent Carter s2

“Dwelling on what might have been is no way to live.”

We can’t change the past, and we can’t control the future. But we can choose how we deal with the present. A life lived as a slave to the hypothetical is a life half-lived, so it’s up to us to make the present the best it can be. Peggy Carter’s journey this season has been about moving away from the hypothetical—her longing over what might have been and her fears of what could be—and allowing herself to find a place in the present where she belongs and feels happy. That journey created a season of Agent Carter that was allowed to grow with its heroine and a finale that showcased the power of choosing to live in the present and forge a path without regrets.

As a Catholic schoolgirl, I learned a prayer when I was younger that I still use as a mantra today:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change those things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

It’s in that balance between serenity, courage, and wisdom that we find happiness in the present. And “Hollywood Ending” highlighted the ways all of this season’s major players worked to find that balance.

Naturally, the character who struggled the most with that balance was Whitney Frost. If I had one major complaint about “Hollywood Ending,” it was that Whitney’s defeat felt anticlimactic and not worthy of the complexity of her character. I would have loved for her to have been the reason the rift stayed open instead of her playing no real role in that life-or-death situation. However, the scenes before and after the Zero Matter was taken from her were much more interesting.

Watching the madness take hold of Whitney was fascinating, and Wynn Everett was once again at the top of her game. Whitney believed this was her way of making the most of the present, of choosing her happiness. She’d spent so many years listening to what other people told her to do and living the life she thought she was supposed to live, but it broke my heart to see that all she was doing now was listening to another voice telling her what to do—the voice of Zero Matter.

Whitney’s desire to grow more powerful on her own set up another excellent parallel between her and Peggy. While Peggy learned that she could achieve more by allowing others to fight alongside her, Whitney chose to push everyone else away. Peggy entered that final showdown with a whole team beside her, but Whitney entered it alone.

However, there was one person who was still fighting for Whitney over the voices of Zero Matter—and that was the man who loved her. Yes, Joseph Manfredi is a villain in his own right, but I’m a sucker for a man who loves a strong woman—and that’s who Joseph turned out to be. He knew a life with Whitney—the real Whitney—was worth fighting for. Even if it meant working with Team Carter to save the woman he loved (which gave us that fantastic scene of him holding Jarvis at gunpoint).

It broke my heart to see Joseph visit Whitney at the episode’s end, only to discover that she’d lost the one thing she valued above all others: her mind. She was now a slave to what might have been—desperately trying to get back to a place of power by any means necessary, including clawing at her own face to open it up. It was a chilling final moment that was worthy of such a great character, and that final scene made up for the fact that the actual climax of her story was a bit underwhelming.

Unlike Whitney, Jason Wilkes refused to be controlled by Zero Matter. He chose a different path for himself—a hero’s path. And while it felt a little convenient for his explosion to take away all his Zero Matter, I wasn’t complaining, because it was nice to see him join Team Carter as himself. Jason is a fundamentally good man who made desperate choices when faced with an impossible situation, and I liked that no one held that against him. What mattered weren’t the choices he made in the past but the choices he was making in the present. And in the end, he found where he belonged.

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Fangirl Thursday: Fan Mail Feelings

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This past Monday was the deadline for letters for The Fan Mail Project, but it wasn’t the end of this project. If you still have letters you’d like to send to female characters who’ve inspired you or impacted your life in some way, you send still send them to me at nerdygirlnotes@gmail.com. I’ll still accept them for at least another few weeks as I work on the next phase of the project, so if you see this post and are wondering if you can still submit a letter, it wouldn’t hurt to send me an email and ask—chances are I’ll say yes!

Also, if at any point you decide you need to add something to or change something about your letter—maybe to reflect a change in that character’s story or your own story—please don’t hesitate to ask if you can. The editing process for books is quite long, so I’m certain there will be plenty of time for you to edit your own letters if you need to.

The next part of this process is in my hands. I’ll be putting the letters in an order that I feel ties the project together in the most cohesive way and writing some connecting essays to further explain the importance of not just the characters these letters were written to but the importance of the fans that wrote them. I want this book to be a celebration of what I believe fandom is at its very best—an uplifting marriage of the deeply personal and the inherently communal that helps those looking for a place to belong feel less alone—and I’m working on additional material for this book that honors that belief.

I promise to keep you all updated as I continue along in this process, and I ask for your patience as things continue to move along at an uncertain speed. I’m not sure how long it will take to turn your beautiful letters into a book you’ll actually be able to read and show off to the world, but I pledge to work as hard as I can to make it a reality and to keep you informed every step of the way. This summer will be spent shopping the manuscript around to potential publishers and agents, and it’s my most sincere hope that someone connects with and believes in this project the way so many of you have and takes a chance on publishing it.

Monday was a special day. It was a day filled with overwhelming gratitude and a deep sense of purpose. To all who’ve participated in this project so far and to all who are still working to finish your letters, thank you—from the bottom of my heart. The way you embraced this project with not just enthusiasm but open hearts, powerful vulnerability, and total honesty touched my heart in a way even I—with the high expectations I have for everything—didn’t see coming. Your bravery and passion are every bit as inspiring as any of the traits in any of the women you wrote about. You are shining examples of the brilliant, beautiful, and wonderfully unique people that are brought together by fandom. And I will do everything in my power to honor your trust, your belief in this project, and your incredible words by making The Fan Mail Project a reflection not just of me but of all of you who shared so much of yourself with me through your letters.

I knew when I started this project that I couldn’t do it alone—because the whole point of fandom is to connect with others and discover that we’re not alone. And while I’m about to start a part of this process that’s on my shoulders and only mine, it’s nice to know I’m still not alone.