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kasagia · 4 months

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Losing your memory

Pairing: Young! Coriolanus Snow x fem!Capitol! reader Summary: He used to be your Coryo. Now he has become the man you don't know. The Plinth heir. The future president of Panem. You pray every day to forget about the sweet boy you fell in love with, on whom you could always count. To forget who he was and lose the memory of the past. Just like he did. Well... not exactly. Unfortunately for you, he still wants to remember you. Inspired by: "Losing your memory" by Ryan Star Word count: 7,2 k ~•♤♤♤•~ Coriolanus Snow's Masterlist ~•♤♤♤•~ Main Masterlist ~•♤♤♤•~

You've been avoiding him ever since you found out he was back in the Capitol.

A month ago, this news would have aroused great joy and ecstasy in you. Your Coryo is back home. He managed to shorten his exile and gain Dr. Gaul's favour again.

But the man who returned from District 12 was not your dear friend or lover. This wasn't your sweet Coryo, with whom you walked hand in hand to school. This wasn't the boy you shared your lunch with. This wasn't a boy who cared about your well-being above his own. This wasn't a boy who joked about snobbish children spoiled by the richest people in Panem with you and Sejanus at the end of the day. (Although he talked with them, trying to keep up good appearances—he used to call that one of the responsibilities of being Snow.)

The man who came back was Coriolanus. The new Plinth heir. The shell of someone you knew. The ruthless, cold pet of the mad creator of the Hunger Games you despised.

Sejanus' death didn't hurt you as much as the transformation of Coriolanus from the person closest to you into someone you barely even recognized. And from the tearful, sad, resentful, and disappointed stories you heard from Tigris, you had an accurate picture of the man who took your Coryo's place.

And you hated him with all your heart.

Especially after what he promised you when you stayed at his apartment for one snowy winter night.

You lay wrapped in the various blankets and quilts Coryo and Tigris could find. It was winter, and they didn't have much money for additional heating, so they mostly walked around the house in several layers and slept under piles of clothes.

You didn't know about that that night.

Tigris lent him her quilt so that he wouldn't have to be ashamed of the poverty his family had fallen into since you were supposed to come to sleepover with him after the argument with your parents.

Cuddling up to your blonde boy, you tried to fall asleep, listening to his heartbeat. You frowned at the sound of it being a little faster than usual.

You lift your head and look at him carefully. His gaze is distant and thoughtful as he lazily draws patterns on your back as he presses you against his chest.

"Coryo?" you whisper, cupping his cheek in your hand tenderly and forcing those blue irises you have loved so much to look at you. "What's wrong, sweetheart?"

He sighs long and presses a kiss on your forehead, the tip of his nose stroking your hair, as he is inhaling your scent. "I just... I just think about the fact that you deserve so much more. My grandma and Tigirs deserve much more than... this." he says with disgusting pointing at the room you were in.

"This..." you say, clasping your hands together and pressing a tender kiss to the back of his hand. "Is more than enough. You are all I need. And one day, when you are President of Panem or any other important figure in the Capitol, none of you will lack anything. This is a temporary state. You are too smart to be anything less than great, Coryo. You know it."

You see him hold back tears. He pushed your head onto his chest to rest his chin on your head. He is not crying. He almost never cries. But you know how close he is to it by the slight quiver in his breathing.

"I know I don't show it often enough... but you mean... everything to me. I can't imagine how I would go through these all without you by my side."

"I love you, Corio. Just promise me you won't forget this. What you went through, what you experienced. Don't forget your struggle. That's something you should never be ashamed of." he tenses at your words but leans in to kiss you passionately and hungrily. Putting all his unexpressed emotions into action and into that kiss that warmed you more than any blanket or radiator could ever.

"I promise. I will never forget how you kept me sane. When you were the only shelter I could go to and the only support that could bear the boundlessness of my troubles and doubts. How you were my only moonlight in the worst of my darknesses." you laugh softly, recognising part of his words.

"Quoting poets will get you nowhere, Coriolanus Snow." you say teasingly, rubbing your nose against him, at which he chuckles, licking his lips.

"Well... I've learned that in some situations, it gets me somewhere. And it's a very cold night tonight, don't you think? I can't let you freeze to death." he says as his hands go under your shirt—actually, his shirt that you stole from his closet.

"Well… I guess there's nothing left for me… but to place myself under your solicitous care." you sigh softly as he pins you underneath him, making sure the cocoon of blankets is still tightly wrapped around the two of you.

"I couldn't have said it better." he whispers and presses his lips against yours, stealing your breath countless times. He pulls away just a little to say against your lips, "You're mine. We belong together. No matter what."

He makes you shiver as you eagerly agree to everything he says. You don't realise how, in the future, you will curse every single intimate, sweet moment you shared with him.

Ironically, you realise how deep he has gotten under your skin the moment he returns to the Capitol, and you have to avoid him, not when he is sent into exile.

It was probably because when he was gone, you were too distraught to bother leaving your room, opening the blinds, or wiping the tears that somehow kept leaking from your eyes to notice how almost every place reminded you of him. If you could, you'd go back in time and tell yourself there's no point in crying over the asshole he's become.

Although maybe you already felt that your Corio was leaving, and it was a way of mourning him?

Anyway, you saw him everywhere. Not Coriolanus. Coryo. He stalked you in the library, the park, the cafe near the academy that you two and Sejanus liked to go to, and of course the Academy itself. Kudos to your parents for not letting him into your house. At least he didn't pollute your room with memories of him.

Involuntarily, you wonder if he also sees you, for example, in every corner of his apartment. Or maybe he renovated it beyond recognition to erase all traces of his past?

You didn't know.

And you didn't want to know.

The information about him that Tigris gave you when you met her at your house when Coriolanus was at the university for classes was sufficient.

Just because it didn't work out with her cousin didn't mean you would abandon your only real friend. And just because things didn't work out with her cousin didn't mean she would stop (more or less subtly) encouraging you to go back to him.

"We talked about you." she says, making adjustments to your dress that she made for your birthday party thrown by your parents. Another one of the unpleasant responsibilities.

"You and your grandma?" you ask, trying to avoid HIM as a topic as much as possible.

"No. Me and Coriolanus." she says, pinning something to your waist—some decorative strip of fabric or something—you're not sure; you're too focused on the window and the bustling city as you are trying to ignore her words. "You know… I think… I think I saw in his eyes… the old Coryo. For a brief moment, but… maybe if you came back to him, he would come back to himself too."

"I'm sorry, Tigris, but I think he went too far on his path to simply go back to who he was. Surely not because of me."

"I understand… I just really miss him." she says it in a soft, broken tone, and your heart breaks at it. You hug her with all your strength, uniting with her pain that you also felt so deeply.

"Me too." you whisper in her ear as she cries into your shoulder.

Tigris was a very strong woman. She always impressed you. You wanted to be as strong as her. But even the toughest had to cry sometimes.

After all, there comes a time when even the snow melts... even if only for a little while.

You held him tightly in your arms as Corio cried into your chest.

His grandmother fell ill. Hard. Without a doctor, she definitely wouldn't be able to get out of this on her own, and they didn't have the money to pay for one, let alone the medicines.

Your boyfriend spent the whole day planning, thinking, and getting any money, but it was not enough even to buy the cheapest antibiotic.

However, you didn't expect that after you found out it all from Tigris and ran to him as fast as you could with the chicken soup prepared by your servants and all your pocket money, he would start crying.

Coriolanus Snow cried like a little baby.

You handed the money and soup to Tigris, who, after feeding up their grandma, quickly ran out with her to the doctor. At that time, you were holding your boyfriend in your arms in the other room, who simply fell apart from his helplessness.

"Shh… it's going to be okay, Coryo. She will live, falsify that stupid hymn and hate me for not being enough for you just as she used to." your attempt to comfort him didn't help. If anything, he only cried more, holding onto you tighter and tighter.

"I should be able to take care of them... I should be the one taking care of you, not the other way around. I'm pathetic and weak. I'm not worthy of being called Snow."

"Hey, my sweet boy, look at me. You are strong. You are the strongest man I know. You are looking after me all the time; you literally give me everything you have, the last piece of your food, to keep me happy, safe, and full when I forget to bring a damn second breakfast from home or don't have time to eat something. You love me, and I love you, and that's how it works. We care about each other. And I have never, ever regretted being with you. Because what we have… is more valuable than anything else in this world. I trust you implicitly, and I will always be by your side. You are not alone with your problems and suffering. Not as long as I am here."

"But for how long will you stay? For how long will you endure with me?" he asks, and after one look at those a little red from crying, beautiful blue iris, you answer without a shadow of hesitation.

"As long as you love me and I can trust you. As long as I breathe. As long as I am in your mind and heart. I am not going anywhere, Coryo. Money can be earned, but what we have... you can't buy it. What I feel for you is more dear to me than any treasure in this world and I will never exchange it for anything else." you promise, stroking his hair tenderly to help him calm down.

You should've then wondered why he doesn't agree with you then. Why doesn't he say that he also feels this way and that he also values you more than money, glory, and honours?

But he blinds you by telling you for the first time that he loves you.

And you cling to him, wiping the tears from his face with your lips and foolishly believing that your love is pure and eternal.

Like a driven snow.

You knew this day would come someday. The day you let your guard down. But you hoped it would take a little longer before you came face-to-face with Coriolanus.

You are completely unprepared for this. You just freeze like a deer in headlights when you see his face at the end of one of the university's corridors as he walks forward, looking for something in his bag. Before you can even think about running away, he looks up, probably feeling watched, and his blue, icy eyes meet yours.

You both stand there transfixed, looking at each other, taking in the changes in your appearance since the last time you saw each other, which was after you broke up with him, when you saw how tenderly he treated Lucy Gray and how comfortable he was around her. And after someone politely informed you that he had kissed her.

"Y/N!" Coriolanus calls out to you and takes a step towards you, but you quickly step back and run through the crowd of people to get away from him. Unfortunately for you, he doesn't give up that easily. He never does. "Y/N! Wait!"

You have no intention of doing so. You run as fast as you can, bumping into several students along the way. You don't even bother apologising; you just run, hoping that Snow will stop being hot on your heels. Which, by the way, was a miserable dream after how fit he was after his training and the time he spent as a peacekeeper.

On the way, you notice a woman's bathroom and immediately run into it. You lock yourself in a cabin, thanking God or whoever is up that you managed to get an empty cabin and hide in it. You hear his quick footsteps and the door opening, followed by the screams of other women in the bathroom. You sigh in relief as you hear him obediently leave the room.

You're not leaving, though. You are not stupid. You know he's waiting at the door for you to come out. You decide to wait here until the end of the break between classes and hope that he will drop the idea of continuing to chase you and talk to you, and he will attend the lecture instead.

As the bathroom begins to empty, you realise that the next lectures must be soon. You stand silently on the toilet seat, listening carefully, waiting for the right moment to emerge from your miserable hiding place.

Just as you are about to reach for the doorknob, the bathroom door opens. You shiver as you hear heavy footsteps echoing off the tiles of the empty bathroom. And you think that you can smell the subtle scent of roses in the air.

"Come on, Y/N. I know you're here. I just want to talk."

Said the snake moments before eating the bird alive.—you think, mentally mocking how gentle he was trying to present himself. As if he could still be your Coryo.

"I have time. I can play hide-and-seek with you, if you want to. After all, you always liked to play this when we were kids. And you always lost."

You roll your eyes, listening carefully to his footsteps. He was opening the first cabin. You were in the middle one—the one a little closer to the door (and him).

"We'll have to talk eventually. You can't avoid me and ignore me, no matter how good you are at it lately. Let's stop this ridiculous, childish behaviour and go talk over coffee and some of your favourite cookies at the cafe near the academy. Just like the good old days. Well, this time all your orders are on me. What do you say?"

You would have snorted if it hadn't immediately revealed your hiding place to him. How dare he invite you to the place where you, he, and Sejanus spent the most time? To the place where your first unofficial date was.

He wanted to manipulate you, to make you believe that your Corio is still there and lives behind the façade of the rich, arrogant asshole he has become. But you knew better. His eyes told you everything you needed to know.

Even without Tigris' help, you realised that he... was a completely different person. He turned into somebody you only used to know in the past.

"Seriously? Still nothing? So you prefer the hard way, then..." he says, opening another cabin. You wait patiently for him to come to yours.

You breathe as quietly as you can, trying not to let him know which cabin you're in. You listen to his slow, measured steps as, with the incredible confidence and calm that is typical of him, he opens each cabin door, moving inexorably towards you.

Your heart quickens, beating madly, when you see his shoes in the whole, under the cabin's door. He reaches for the door handle, and before he can open it, you push the door against him with all your strength.

You hear him curse, taking a few steps back in a daze and holding his nose. You take the opportunity and run to the exit of the bathroom as fast as you can, not looking back.

"Fuck! Y/N! Are you insane?!" he shouts, running after you.

You reach the door just in time and slam it behind you, sprinting out of the university. You get in your car and drive away with your tyres screeching. In the rearview mirror, you see him leaving the building and following your car with a furious glare.

"I can't believe you invited Snow." you huff, fixing your makeup in the mirror. Your father is buttoning his cuffs, and your mother stands next to you, also putting the finishing touches on her appearance. "You hated him when we were together."

"He is an ambitious and clever boy. Plinth did well to make him his heir. You should reconsider whether he really is that bad. This match would have opened many doors for us. Not only among Plinth's allies but also among Dr. Gaul. God knows how she favours this boy. Who knows? Maybe one day he will be president of Panem."

"If so, I will run away abroad." you say it bitterly, putting your lipstick back in your purse and adjusting the necklace around your neck to make yourself look perfect.

"Don't be stupid. Snow wouldn't be so bad for you. Since you are our only child, we must marry you well. Make sure your husband doesn't blow our fortune in a week. And Snow is a thoughtful boy. He wouldn't let you live below the poverty line."

"And he's quite handsome." your mother adds, straightening your father's tie. "Still, he's not a womaniser. I heard he turned down the... special attention of Crane's daughter and a few other Capitol's girls. I guess he's been alone since your breakup."

"Hmm. Great. He wouldn't cheat on me with other snobs in the capital, but he would fuck with whores in the district. The perfect candidate for a husband." you scoff, walking with them to the next room, where the photographers were waiting to take a photo of you together.

“Language, Y/N. You are a lady. Besides, it is not certain whether he and this Lucy Gray actually had something between them. After all, she's a woman from the district.” your mom says this, smiling for the cameras.

The flashes blind you a little, but with your father's and mother's hands on your shoulders, you somehow manage to keep your pose, fake, pretty smile, and opened eyes.

Your father thanks them and leads you out of the room and into the corridor leading to the great hall where the ball was to be held.

"And even if he did, it's good that he had some fun. It will make him appreciate the treasure that you are and see that you are irreplaceable." he says, taking the box out of his pocket. He hands it to you with a warm smile. "Happy birthday, my treasure."

"We've already given her..." your father shushes your mother. You send them a confused look as you open the medium-sized box.

You find a tiara there. A small diamond tiara.

"It will match your dress perfectly." your father says proudly. You nod and walk to the mirror to put it on, despising the object in your hands with all your heart. You may look like a princess, but you've never felt so... disgusted with yourself before.

This feeling intensified even more when, after a toast and receiving wishes from several of your friends and more powerful families, you managed to sneak out to the balcony. Not long after you, all the single, young men of the richest family on the Capitol entered, with Coriolanus among them. They each took a cigarette and started smoking, gossiping about the events of the week…

And their topic of conversation was exactly what you were afraid of when you got that fucking tiara.

"Have you seen this? I bet they're pure diamonds. Old Y/L/N wants to marry her off so much that he's using every trick possible."

"He doesn't need to do much. She is beautiful in her own right. But this character… it's easier to train a dog than such a stubborn cow."

"What Snow? Are you now regretting that the Capitol's Diamond slipped from your hands? I heard she wants nothing to do with you. How unfortunate that it happened at the moment when you started to count in the eyes of the elite, and now you really have any chance of grabbing this precious gem for yourself."

The Capitol's Diamond. You shudder, thinking about the nickname you've been given.

That's what they called you. The sole heiress to your parents' fortune. Diamond of the Capitol, the best match in the city, with a dowry greater than any other woman. Anyone who won your hand was guaranteed to reach the top and success with your family's connections, your charm, beauty, and brain. And these vultures knew it perfectly well.

You were curious how the new Coriolanus would react.

Your Coryo only took advantage of your position in society when he had to. He didn't ask you for money or for you to convince your father to whisper a good word about him here and there. Maybe it was because of his pride; maybe he really didn't care. You have no idea. But Coryo despised that term as much as you did. You wondered if that had changed as well.

"I'm still in the game." he replies evasively, sipping his drink. The others laugh and he frowns in displeasure.

"Sure. Because the way she ran away from you today when you approached her with a gift says exactly that." they mock him. You see him clench his jaw, glaring at them coldly as he considers his next move.

"Enjoy it while you can. Your good mood will end when our cat-and-mouse game is over and the Capitol's Diamond hangs proudly on my shoulder." you huff, shaking your head in disbelief. You come out of hiding, and all the men on the balcony tense up and look at you in surprise.

Especially Coriolanus. Suddenly everyone is staring intently at the garden of your estate, too shy to look at you. Except Snow. He drills a hole into you with his gaze as he thinks of a way to undo what he said.

"Gentlemen." you scoff, walking past them and ignoring Coriolanus' glare. "For your information, I would rather live in one of the districts than marry any of you. Enjoy the party." you add sweetly, walking back to the ballroom.

The party is in full swing. You are talking to Thomas, using a sweet boy in a shameful way—to scare other men away from you. Just as you expected, they started flocking to you like flies to a fire.

So you chose the least spoiled of them. Thomas was nice and funny; you had a good time talking to him, and dancing with him was even better.

He wasn't rich; he wasn't part of the cream of society. You were really starting to enjoy spending time with him. And most importantly... he looked nothing like Coriolanus. He was nice for the eyes, but his dark hair, eyes, and sweet, shy personality made him drastically different from your ex. So he was the perfect break from your dramatic love life. Boring, nice change.

You danced to a waltz with him. He held you gently, close but respectful, not invading your personal space. He was a perfect gentleman. The man of your dreams.

If only Coriolanus' icy eyes weren't focused on both of you like a predator waiting for its prey to stumble, you would be able to enjoy Thomas' company to the fullest.

You are with him at the buffet, sipping drinks, when suddenly the last person you expected to meet here approaches you.

"Mrs. Plinth." you whisper in shock as he stands in front of you.

She looks—probably the way she feels. Nice on the outside and devastated on the inside. The dark circles under her eyes cannot be fully covered by makeup, and the deep black of her dress is a clear reminder of what she is still going through.

You can't imagine the pain he's going through right now. And you wonder why the woman decided to join her husband for your birthday party. Since Sejanus' death, she has rarely left their apartment.

"Y/N. Can I steal you from this young man for a moment?"

"Of course." you say, not even looking in Thomas' direction as you and Mrs. Plinth walk to one of the empty living rooms in your mansion. You close the door behind her and point to the couch. "Can I get you something to drink? Or to eat?"

"No. There is no need, darling. I just… I just came here to give you something." she says, pulling a thick letter out of her purse. "I… the letters from Sejanus are still reaching us. The flow of information between the districts and the Capitol is… very heavy and long. Especially when the peacekeepers are now checking every one of his correspondence. He sent it to you. Or rather, he wanted you to send it to him. Or rather, he wanted you to have it, just in case he couldn't… I'm sorry."

Your heart aches with sadness, seeing her on the verge of tears. She probably has no one to talk to about her son except her husband. After all, Sejanus was a traitor of Panem…

"He was a wonderful friend. The best one somebody could have. I could always count on him. Thank you for... taking the trouble to give me a letter from him. That... means a lot." you say, fighting the urge to hug the woman. The Capitol is not famous for acts of tenderness, mercy, or compassion. You had to keep up a facade. Always.

You take the letter from her and walk her to the exit. You give her one sympathetic look—everything you could afford in your position—and close the door behind her.

You sit on the couch and open the letter with trembling hands, trying not to look too closely at the way he wrote your name on the envelope. You know that will remind you of how you taught him how to decorate letters in his first days at the Capitol. Because everything here had to be perfectly beautiful. Even the fucking handwriting.

A bracelet falls out of the envelope and onto your lap. It is not particularly beautiful or sumptuous. It is a simple strap holding a peg-shaped pendant with some black, crushed stone placed behind a piece of glass.

You place it on the coffee table and open the letter with trembling hands. You already feel that after all this you will have to fix your makeup, which you will probably ruin with tears, but Sej's letter cannot wait until the end of the party.

Y/N, If you are somehow reading this letter, it means that I am not at your 20th birthday party, which makes me very sad. (You know how I love celebrating in your garden away from these Capitol's snobs.) Coming back, you know that I wish you all the best (along with Coryo. He's too big of a stick up his ass to write to you, even though he misses you and can't stop thinking about you. Take pity on me and write to this stubborn idiot, because I don't think I can stand another tirade about you and your perfection. Seriously. Our boy is getting mad because of this despair. I don't recognise him at all.) So, my dear friend, I wish you the best. I don't have any trinkets, interesting books, sweets, or anything suitable as a gift here, so I hope you'll be satisfied with what I came up with. I am not a poet, so don't laugh at me. I shall hear... or not. I made the bracelet, which you've probably already seen, myself. And that stone that is inside (and I hope it survived) is coal. I wanted to give this to you as a symbol of who you are to me. Everyone sees you as a diamond, something precious and beautiful. But for me and probably other people close to you, you are something more. This shiny diamond facade hides carbon. A simple coal, an ordinary soul like many others. But you made something more out of that ordinary coal. You are a diamond. Indestructible, the most durable of all. The purest form, preserved among the other gems and stones of the Capitol, because that's what all these power-hungry assholes are—coals that have decided not to change, to choose what is easy for them. I hope now you can see why I liked that nickname for you, diamond. So I hope you always stay true to yourself. No matter what. That's what I learned here, and I want to pass it on to you. Although I hope that by then the three of us will meet again in the Capitol. Do not wait for us both, Sejanus P.S. I miss you too.

You fold the letter and put it back in the envelope. You wipe away the tears that remain on your cheeks with your hands and take a few ragged breaths, trying to calm down.

You freeze when suddenly someone's arms wrap around you. The scent of roses hits your nostrils.

You get up from the couch like you've been burned and push Coriolanus' arms away from you. The feeling of sadness quickly turns to anger and pure fury as you stare at Snow.

"What the hell are you doing here?" you growl through a clenched jaw, extremely glad that there's a couch between you, or you'd hit him. And it was easier for you to explain your tears and smeared makeup than your red knuckles.

"Sweet, kind Plinth, giving you thoughtful gifts from beyond the grave. You love the dead Sejanus so much and ignore the living me. It must be hypocrisy on your part, don't you think? You accuse me of forgetting about Sejanus when you treat me so shamefully, worse than a dog. Should I die so that you can finally stop giving me the silent treatment and running away from me?"

"Believe me, you don't want to hear what I have to say to you." you huff, taking the bracelet and the letter. You hide them in the bodice of your dress and go to the mirror to fix your smudged makeup.

"You do not have to do that. Your boy isn't at the party anymore anyway." he says, standing so that you can see his reflection in the mirror.

"What?" you ask in surprise, turning to face him. You both stare at each other. In fact, you're only now getting a chance to take a good look at him. And you notice with dissatisfaction that the bastard found out from Tigris what your dress would look like, and he chose a suite so that both of you would match. "Where is Thomas?"

"Your little boy toy? Do you think he's enough of a distraction? That he can replace me? That he'll make you feel what I feel? Maby, that he can even protect you from me? Only I know you. I'm the only one worthy of your fucking attention and affection." you push past him, but he grabs your elbow.

"Touch me again and I'll cut off your hand and shove it down your throat." you growl, breaking away from his grip.

"Such aggression… I don't remember you from this side." he mocks you and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. You step away from him and cross your arms, staring at him defiantly.

"I will ask you one last time. Where is Thomas?"

"Let's just say that your mother and I caught him stealing your jewelry. We were merciful enough to solve the matter quietly. You will never see that garbage on the ball or any gala again. Certainly not on yours."

"Were you the one who framed him for this?" his silence and the calculating, self-proud look of the cat that caught the canary (or, in this case, the snake that choked the mouse) tell you everything. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" you ask furiously.

You want to move past him, but he pushes you back, making you bump into the wall. He closes the gap between you in one step, pressing his chest against yours.

"You're mine. You've always been. You shouldn't lead this loser on or give him false hopes. We both know we will end up together."

"I broke up with you." you remind him, not caring about his intimidating attitude.

"A mistake I intend to fix." he says, leaning towards you.

His nose brushes against yours, and you shiver. You lift your leg, trying to kick him in the groyne, but out of the corner of his eye, he sees your sudden movement and grabs your thigh in a tight grip. If it weren't for the thick layers of material, he would probably leave bruises.

"You... you have nothing to fix. There is no longer us. I don't even know you anymore, Coriolanus."

"Don't." he growls at you angrily. You can see the desperation and madness in his eyes at the fact that you're using his name and that you wrote off your relationship. "It was always you. You were always mine, Y/N, and I was always your Coryo."

"Things are changing quickly. We are not the same, and now we have nothing in common, nothing to talk about."

"We have EVRYTHING to talk about. I still love.."

"DON'T!" you interrupt him. He freezes. You rarely shout, especially at him. That's why he takes a step back before putting on his impassive mask again. "Don't even say that. You have no idea what love is. Sure, you may feel attached and even desire me at some point, but you have no idea of unconditional, true love. So for old time's sake, leave me alone."

"What about you? Do you think you are so holy and blameless? That I'm the only bad guy? You lied to me. You promised you would stay with me, no matter what."

"I promised it to my Coryo. Not to you, Coriolanus. My Coryo died in District 12 with Sejanus—maybe even in the Hunger Games—when you let Dr. Gaul brainwash you in the name of fame, money, and position. You think that old hag didn't tell me why Sejanus is dead? That I don't know that your songbird has disappeared? That I would believe that Highbottom just got high or drank himself to death?" he clenches his jaw and fists at your words. You can see how furious he is, but he holds back, still controlling himself.

"Everything I did, I did for us. For you. For Tigris and Grandma." you laugh, wondering who he's trying to fool—himself, you, or both of you at the same time.

"No. You're doing it for yourself. Only for yourself, Coriolanus." he gets even more angry and pins you to the wall again. His cool blue eyes are raging with rage, and you try hard to push away the feeling of fear he has stirred in you.

"Do you want a reason to hate me? So you and Tigris can still gossip about my madness? Then maybe I should let this old man pursue her and sell her as a wife to one of them for good money."

"KEEP HER OUT OF IT! It's Tigris, Coriolanus! Tigris! The woman whose sacrifice you owe your entire fucking life to! A woman who went out of her way to give your ungrateful, selfish ass something to wear. Who sacrificed the love of her life in the name of maintaining the façade of Snow's wealth?! You can give a damn about me, Sejan, and even that little songbird of yours, but if you fucking ruin the life of your cousin—the only goddamn person who still cares about you—I promise you, in memory of OUR dead friend, that there won't be a fucking hole where you could hide from me."

You stare daggers at each other, both openly expressing your resentment towards the other. You have no idea why he still cares about you—is it because of your money, position, or some sick fantasy he has in his head, or maybe he actually still cares about you?

You don't think about it when a more important issue arises.

Suddenly, he grabs your face in both hands and pulls you towards him, greedily kissing you as he connects your lips after a very long time of separation. He caresses your lips with his and kisses you with such fervour as if he craves you like a hermit starving for water.

And for a moment, you feel like you were with Coryo, when all that mattered to you was the other one, when you could get lost in each other, forgetting about the rest of the world and the worries that were waiting for you.

And that's exactly what he's doing now. He makes you forget about anything but him.

You can't help but moan into his mouth as he presses his body against yours. When he releases his strong grip on your cheeks to grab you around your waist and press you against his body, his leg is between yours.

He kisses you more hungrily, groaning too at the familiar warmth of your body against him and the feeling of your soft, silky skin pressing against him. The scent of your perfume mixes, creating a perfect combination of roses and your favourite flowers. Your hands automatically go to his hair as you hold on to him and press him to you. You don't like the gel on your hands from his hair, but you ignore this new, irritating feeling by biting his lip.

You don't think at all. As well as Coriolanus. You both just kiss each other, your tongues joining, as you both let your desire for one another take control of the situation.

You only come to your senses when your lips break apart. You gasp, trying to breathe again, as he fucks your exposed collarbones with kisses. Your brain comes back to you as he leaves a hickey on your neck. He bites you, making you moan so needily that a wave of shame washes over you with his tongue, soothing the bite. You push him away from you and place your hand on your chest, trying to regain control over yourself.

"See? We belong together. There is no other way, Y/N. We are all we need."

"Bullshit." you gasp, trying to ignore the possessive, smug feeling blooming in your chest when you see his messy hair and your lipstick smeared on his lips. "Since you are that good in losing your memory, then forget about me too."

"I can't. I just can't. You think I haven't tried? That you don't haunt me every damn step I take? Everything I have and everything I know is saturated with you. With the memory of both of us. I forgot about what I had with that songbird and my friendship with Sejanus, but I simply CAN'T forget about you. I haven't spent a single damn day without thinking about you. NOT EVEN ONE. And I know you felt the same way. Do you know why I didn't kill that stupid boy who was clinging to you? Because I knew it would make you hate me even more. I was alone without you at 12, and you know how it ended. You are my conscience. Without you... there's nothing holding me back. Without you, there is nothing to distinguish me from the Hunger Games tributes. I have no borders, mercy, compassion, or anything that makes people human beings. And Gaul knows it. That's why she told you all of my crimes; that's why you're paranoid now that I'm someone completely different. But it's still me. I. Am. Still. Your. Coryo." he says it firmly, taking a step closer to you with each word.

"Don't turn me into a fucking cricket for your Pinocchio. I am not, and I do not want to be your conscience. I will not take part in your lies, games, and manipulations." you say as you both stare at each other, neither of you wanting to concede to the other in any way.

"I will have you. One way or another, but I will. Even if it is the last thing I do, I will have you by my side. Just where you always belonged. I promised you to be my First Lady. And I intend to keep that promise."

"You must become president first. And believe me, I will do everything in my power to prevent that from happening. Maybe you can't forget about me. But I can. I do not need you. I never needed you. How ironic to be able to lose the memories of everyone except the girl who will be the end of you, isn't it, CORIOLANUS?" you mock him, a smirk on your lips, making him a promise.

You walk past him, and this time he lets you go, knowing full well that he won't do anything more with you today. At least he got his kiss and a little taste of you, a reminder of the reward that awaits him when everything finally falls into place. When he finally has you in his arms and is at the top of Panem—his rightful place.

"The game has just begun!" he shouts after you, staring at you as you head towards the bathroom to touch up your ruined makeup. It gives you satisfaction to think that this bastard will probably have to clean himself up after your little make-out session, too.

You think that maybe Gaul was right about the Hunger Games being the whole world. But the reality was that there could only be ONE winner.

And among the people of the Capitol, only you and Coriolanus had a real chance of winning. It has always been like that. And even lost memories that do not want to go away so easily are proof of this.

Part 2

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jordoalejandro · 2 years

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The Sixth Annual List of TV Shows I Saw the Past Year

The list kind of caught me off-guard this year. A little while ago I was thinking, “I should check out when the Emmys are” and then I did and it was a few weeks away and then I thought, “Oh dang, better get going on that.”

This is a shorter list than previous years. It’s in part because, again, I forgot the Emmys were coming up and so I just didn’t watch the new seasons of a handful of shows and also, I don’t know, I guess I just didn’t watch that many shows period. I was probably doing other stuff. It’s none of your business.

So anyway, I eventually got going on the list and now here it is: the list of shows I’ve watched since-ish the last Emmy Awards (9/19/21).

40. Riverdale (Season 6 - 2021-2022, CW) (Last year’s ranking: 39) - I don’t know if this is the worst show I watched this year. Probably not. But that’s how it feels to me on a personal level. “Hate watching” implies you’re getting some kind of perverse joy from watching a show you think is bad. I don’t think I’m doing that here. I think I’m “disappointed watching” this. The show just feels tired. The actors feel tired. Most of them seem like they’re phoning it in. The drama feels tired. A lot of repetitive beats. A lot of dull storylines. Even the wild swings the show takes feel tired. The main cast all get superpowers this season. Sure. Why not? The show is going through the motions and I’m going through the motions watching it. Season seven will mercifully be its last. Probably a season or two or three too late but it’s the right choice.

39. The Last O.G. (Season 4 - 2021, TBS) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - The show went through another overhaul in-between seasons. After a really bad season three, I was hoping to see some improvement but unfortunately it didn’t seem to help. The writing wasn’t as terribly broad as it was in season three, but it wasn’t good either. The storylines and jokes were way too obvious. The drama felt forced. The show as a whole came across as weirdly amateurish. The acting from the non-main characters was community theater-level. Even things like the sets, the lighting, and the camera work were all really cheap looking. The whole thing often felt like a college production class. The best parts of the season all came from what was likely Tracy Morgan improvising. He and Ryan Gaul are trying to wring laughs out of the material but you can only do so much. Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who I’ve shouted out multiple times on this blog, was again excellent. Way too strong an acting job for a show like this but she has not disappointed in anything I’ve seen her pop up in.

38. The Endgame (Season 1 - 2022, NBC) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - This probably could’ve slotted in a few spots higher, just on a quality level, but it’s down here because I got so tired with its nonsense by the end of the season. It’s one of those shows where the main character villain has this insanely complicated plan with a thousand moving parts and they’re always one step ahead. Even when those types of thrillers are done well they can be exhausting to watch and stretch the boundaries of what you’re willing to logically accept. This one was not done particularly well so it mostly just turned the FBI agent protagonists into complete morons when the situation called for it. Lots of making of decisions that you as a viewer immediately know will backfire (and you usually already know how they'll backfire). A frustrating watch. The central mystery and backstory wasn’t exactly interesting either, so really what are you even getting out of this?

37. La Brea (Season 1 - 2021, NBC) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - A mostly nonsense show. A bunch of CGI that is SyFy channel-level bad, as is most of the acting. Weirdly, not a ton actually happens on a show that is about characters being thrown back in time. Lots of uninteresting conversations and walking around, mostly, and then every now and then our heroes are attacked by a Windows XP saber-toothed tiger.

36. Welcome to Flatch (Season 1 - 2022, FOX) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - A shockingly unfunny show. I’ve wondered this about comedies, how some of them seem incapable of even just accidentally running into something hilarious. You have all these writers and directors and actors working on this and you still go three or four episodes without a solid laugh. Not a single person pitched even an A- joke over that span. A show like this might actually be able to get away with that lack of humor if it made up for it in the story or characters. Come up with a plot that has some surprises or some heart or something. This show has just about none of it. Flat plots, flat characters. I say all of this generally. There are moments in this – which is why it’s a few spots up from the bottom of the list – where there’s a glimmer of hope. You squint and go, “Oh, okay, maybe…” So I do think there’s still some potential here for the show to be better but the writing must improve. A lot.

35. The Flash (Season 8 - 2021-2022, CW) (Last year’s ranking: 40) - Another CW show, like Riverdale, that feels like it’s limping to the finish line. A disjointed season. A lot of stuff from seasons past thrown at the wall but nothing sticking. Instead of feeling like, “Ooh, a blast from the past” it comes off more like they’re out of ideas. I think the problem is that, look: the guy’s superpower is running fast. This show is eight seasons and 170+ episodes in and though the writers have tried here and there to make the Flash have something different to do than “run faster than he’s ever run before,” at the end of the day, that’s what it comes down to. It's probably hard to keep finding new stories when that’s the core you must return to every time. At least, I assume it must be because it seems like they haven’t been able to find those new stories for several seasons now.

34. Batwoman (Season 3 - 2021-2022, CW) (Last year’s ranking: 38) - In some of Arrow’s (and to a lesser extent, Flash’s) better seasons, you forgot it was a CW show. The quality of the writing, acting, and production was good enough to do that. Batwoman, in its three seasons of existence, never got there. It frankly never got close. It started out fine-ish and got worse. The characters were not compelling, the acting was mostly sub-par, and the writing, in terms of both dialogue and plot, was almost always weak. It’s a show that didn’t know its third season would be its last but which limped to the finish line all the same. It’s become a CW tradition!

33. The Walking Dead: World Beyond (Season 2 - 2021, AMC) (Last year’s ranking: 34) - Ultimately a forgettable, disposable show. No real high points or low points in the second and final season. It was probably slightly worse than the first season just because it split up the main cast for most of it but not by a whole lot. In the end, the show ran its course, told its story, and left very little impact.

32. The Blacklist (Season 9 - 2021-2022, NBC) (Last year’s ranking: 28) - Here’s how you know The Blacklist is in some trouble. In the early seasons, when an episode’s title would appear at the start of the program, it would have the name of the character on the titular Blacklist who would be the focus of the episode and then it would have their number on the list. So you would get some in the low 100-150 range and know, “Okay this is more of a weird, side villain.” Then you’d get a few in the 20-100 range and know they were a more serious foe. And then, around the end of the season, you’d start to get to the people under 20 who were like the big bads of the season or other main characters. Well, the creators of the show clearly didn’t plan for it to go on this long. They had probably put about 150 names on the list and now, almost 200 episodes into the show’s run, they’ve run through all the good numbers and have had to expand the list, putting themselves in a place where they're constantly scraping the bottom of the barrel. Every episode now starts with, like, “Bad Guy of the Week. No. 179.” or some similarly high number. It sounds very silly but it has to be this way to logically work with the show’s lore. You can’t suddenly introduce someone who’s extremely dangerous because James Spader’s know-it-all character at the center of the show would’ve placed them nearer to the top of the Blacklist. Thus, you end up with a season here that feels kind of lame. (And, by the way, it’s not going to get better on this front. You can’t invent new numbers.) Look, even trapped into this lore corner, the show could’ve written its way out. It didn’t really. It was a pretty weak season and probably an indication they’re going to need to switch some things up going forward to inject some life into this thing. (In fairness to the show, they seemed to understand this and there was some indication at the end of the season that they might be doing just that. Guess we’ll see.)

31. Bob’s Burgers (Season 12 - 2021-2022, FOX) (Last year’s ranking: 30) - For the last few years, the show has been hovering down here on this list. It tends to reel off an excellent episode once a year, but outside of that it feels like it doesn’t have a lot of surprises left. The plots have familiar beats. The dialogue, especially, is starting to feel stale. It might have to do with the bones of the show. It’s about a pretty basic family and its stories are told in a pretty grounded way, more so than the other cartoons it shares a Sunday evening lineup with, so maybe there’s just so many places you can go with it and after a while, it feels like you’ve seen it all.

30. Abbott Elementary (Season 1 - 2021-2022, ABC) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - I’m shocked this show has received the level of praise and accolades that it has. As of season one, it’s a supremely average show with just a few high points. Its characters are broad, bordering on one-note caricatures. Its plots and jokes are basic, often going exactly the way you think they’re going to go. There’s definitely potential here if they can sharpen things but it’s wild to see people falling over themselves to laud what is an unremarkable workplace comedy.

29. Tales of the Walking Dead (Season 1 - 2022, AMC) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - As I’ve written before about anthology shows, they’ll really only take you as far as the story of the week connects with you. Some weeks are better, some weeks are worse. I will note that this particular show, so far, seems to have a problem getting there. Like, some of these episodes will have a good nugget of an idea (episode two being a time-loop story) but then fail to really deliver a truly satisfying episode (it doesn’t use the time-loop structure particularly well and then ends on a pretty flat note). It feels like they haven’t done a good job of figuring out how to tell a sharp story in just an hour’s time. I think this show has potential (one-off stories in the zombie apocalypse that can get really wild and weird) but it needs to figure out how to hone its storytelling to reach it.

28. Fear the Walking Dead (Season 7 - 2021-2022, AMC) (Last year’s ranking: 11) - Season six of the show ended with a bunch of bombs going off, creating a nuclear wasteland. On last year’s list, I noted this set up an intriguing seventh season. I’m here to report it was not as intriguing as I’d hoped. It honestly felt like the show just got away from the producers. They wanted to pit main characters against one another but couldn’t kill them so a lot of the season became this back and forth dance where characters would fight and yell at each other and then retreat and do it again an episode or two later. Unclear character motivations. Janky plots. A real disjointed season. The show ultimately did kill off quite a few characters by the end of the season which is probably a good thing. It’ll make it easier to do another hard-ish reset. This show has gone through one before and been made better for it. I think that can be the case here.

27. Ghosts (Season 1 - 2021-2022, CBS) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - A fine freshman season for Ghosts with a handful of solid episodes and a few above-average ones. It’s not a particularly funny show. Maybe a couple laughs throughout the whole thing, but it will occasionally nail a story and show off some surprising depth. Still, I do wish it was funnier. It’s in love with the joke of the main girl who can hear the ghosts responding to something one of the ghosts said and then scrambling to cover up when a person who can’t see the ghosts goes “Excuse me?” It also particularly likes having the ghosts yell continuously at someone, trying to get them to hear them even though they’ve been dead for centuries and know they cannot be heard. They keep yelling though, because the writers find it funny when the main girl snaps at them and, once again, has to weakly explain to someone who can’t see or hear the ghosts why she yelled. They overused these joke setups to the point of embarrassment. The show also has another problem: its whole concept is that this couple obtains a mansion deep in the woods and then starts seeing and interacting with the ghosts that are stuck there. Something like 80-90% of the show takes place in said mansion in the woods. This leads to plot after plot of some guest character randomly visiting. You really quickly start seeing the sitcom writing gears turning underneath (“Don’t forget, my boss is coming to stay the weekend.” “I can’t believe your sister showed up uninvited!” etc. etc.). This is coming off more negatively than I feel about the show. I’m sort of neutral about it. I’d like to see where it goes and if it can improve, but I am worried about these things I mentioned. They could turn this into a very grating show very quickly.

26. Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas (TV Film - 2021, The Roku Channel) (Last year’s ranking: 32) - Listen, should this have been on the Movies I Saw list? I guess? It's not really a movie. It's more of a TV show holiday special. And really what it was was a sort of pilot for the Roku Channel to see if there was value in trying to produce more episodes of this show. So in this increasingly blurred area between TV and film, I’m calling it TV. Also, it just felt like TV. It was like a decent two-part Christmas episode of this show, so that’s why it’s in this post and that’s why it’s landed here on this list. Sue me.

25. The Simpsons (Season 33 - 2021-2022, FOX) (Last year’s ranking: 23) - I’ll pass on writing too much about the 33rd season of The Simpsons. I’ll just note it was a decent season, with the high point being a two-part homage to Fargo that was a lot of fun (33.6 and 33.7 - "A Serious Flanders Parts 1 & 2").

24. Snowpiercer (Season 3 - 2022, TNT) (Last year’s ranking: 21) - Snowpiercer had an alright season though I do think it’s reaching the end of the line (pun absolutely and thoroughly intended). It’s been renewed for a fourth and final season and that feels right. It’s been three seasons of basically battling back and forth for control of the train and it’s starting to get a little tired. They do a decent job of flipping the script every now and then and keeping the show fresh enough to be enjoyable, but there’s probably only so many times you can do that.

23. The Walking Dead (Season 11A - 2021-2022, AMC) (Last year’s ranking: 29) - It’s not the most inspired season The Walking Dead has done, but it’s pretty good overall. It has dipped its storytelling toe into classism in a post-apocalypse high society (what seemed like a utopia has a dark underside! whoa!) and it’s like: do we have to? Aren’t there enough shows already doing this in some form or another? The Walking Dead has always worked better as more of a survivalist story. It’s dirtier. And it has zombies. I would’ve preferred that but this is, like I said, pretty good overall still.

22. The Great North (Season 2 - 2021-2022, FOX) (Last year’s ranking: 24) - Solid sophomore season. I don’t have a ton to add. It’s pretty comfortable in its role already.

21. Duncanville (Season 3 - 2022, FOX) (Last year’s ranking: 22) - I’d come to enjoy this show. I think it was starting to find its groove. At times, its tone and humor reminded me a little bit of one of my favorite animated shows ever, The Critic. Duncanville wasn’t entirely close, in terms of consistent quality, but there were moments where I saw it. Anyway, the show got canceled. (Maybe. They’re going to put the remaining completed episodes on Hulu and see if Hulu has interest picking it up for more but I’m expecting it’ll probably join the graveyard of so many other shows that went unsaved by a streamer.)

20. 9-1-1: Lone Star (Season 3 - 2022, FOX) (Last year’s ranking: 13) - I like most of the characters on this show so that keeps me interested, even when things get pretty silly.

19. CSI: Vegas (Season 1 - 2021, CBS) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - The original CSI was always solid as a crime procedural but was particularly good at creating likable characters. This reboot/sequel series isn’t quite there yet but shows some promise. It did a fine job with the crime stories, but the new characters were just alright. It was a smart move to bring William Petersen back as he injected immediate likability, but he only joined for a one season arc and won’t be returning for season two. The success of the show is going to rest on how well they can continue to flesh out the new characters now that he’s gone.

18. Impeachment: American Crime Story (Season 3 - 2021, FX) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - It certainly has its moments, and it picked up momentum as the season went on, but I do think there was just not quite enough meat on the bones for the full 10 episodes. Strong acting performances.

17. Family Guy (Season 20 - 2021-2022, FOX) (Last year’s ranking: 18) - Good year for Family Guy. No real stinkers, though nothing that really stood out as exceptional either. Lots of average to pretty good episodes, which is a nice quality level to maintain for 20 shows, at least.

16. American Dad! (Season 19A - 2022, TBS) (Last year’s ranking: 9) - This show aired the first eight episodes of this season in January and just aired the ninth episode of season 19 this past week. So I guess I’m just reviewing the first eight episodes of the season, which I’ve dubbed season 19A, and I’m here to report: they were good.

15. Ms. Marvel (Season 1 - 2022, Disney+) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - Good humor and characters. Clever visuals. Decent action sequences. Probably the one knock is that it was trying to show off so many aspects of Pakistani Muslim culture throughout that a lot of times it came off a little too much like a Wikipedia article on the subject. The dialogue was so clearly written to give the viewer cultural information that it came off extremely unnatural and pulled you out of things.

14. Archer (Season 12 - 2021, FXX) (Last year’s ranking: 25) - Another strong season for Archer. I mentioned last year that they returned the show to its spy roots and I think it’s been a positive move. They’re only doing eight episodes a year now and it’s back in their comfort zone so they can focus on what they do well and put out good episode after good episode.

13. Legends of Tomorrow (Season 7 - 2021-2022, CW) (Last year’s ranking: 15) - Remember what I wrote about Batwoman? How you never forgot it was a CW show? The same could be said for Legends of Tomorrow, but in a good way. Low budget, silly concept, sort of no reason to exist. And yet, basically from around season three on, everyone in the cast and crew realized that that CW-ness of it all freed them up to do whatever the hell they wanted. The show took big swings – sometimes missed, often landed – but they were never afraid to go for the wildest thing they could think of. Very few shows on the basic broadcast channels do that and I’ll miss this one because of it.

12. Animal Kingdom (Season 6 - 2022, TNT) (Last year’s ranking: 10) - I’ll miss this show, too. For me, it was the perfect summer show. Fun escapism, a great vibe. This is the exact kind of show you want 10-13 episodes of from late May through August. As for season six of this show, though? Last year, after a somewhat weaker fifth season I predicted a very good final season. And well… look, this final season was fine. It was probably my least favorite of all the seasons but it was fine. I enjoyed it for the most part but ultimately, it felt uninspired. Let me get spoilery and dive deep into it for a little here. So the thing is: this show, for its first four seasons, was really about Ellen Barkin’s character Smurf. She was the matriarch of this crime family and her extremely complicated relationship with her sons and grandson was the primary driving force of this show. What was being set up through the early seasons was the final clash between Smurf and her grandson J. It was pretty clear -- because this was a crime show and crime shows all sort of head towards the same bleak ending -- that things would get bad and bloody and the empire would fall and the only question would be who would survive in the end. But then something interesting happened. Smurf was killed off in the penultimate episode of season four. (From what I can tell, this was more a personnel-based decision rather than a plot-based one.) And then another interesting thing happened. The episode after Smurf’s death was fascinating. It wasn’t a revolutionary episode but the vibe was totally different. It was like a cloud had been lifted. Smurf had been this domineering, abusive presence in all these characters’ lives for so long and for the first time, they were free of her. And you saw hints in that episode that maybe these characters might be able to change course. That the show might be able to explore what it would be like to get out from under her shadow and try to build their own lives (while still doing fun stuff like heists and what have you). Season five kind of built on this idea, but you could tell it was struggling a little bit with what to do without Smurf as the big bad at the core of it. And season six was kind of a mess in a similar sense. It spent a lot of time sort of searching for stuff to do. There were a lot of subplots for the majority of the early part of season six that never really paid off and, in retrospect, now feel like they were killing time until we got to the endgame of the season and of the show. And what was that endgame? Basically what it always had been. That's really the most disappointing thing. That after everything, it came back to J needing revenge against a woman who’s been dead for a while. Of course, it’s hard to write out a satisfying plot revolving around getting revenge on a dead person, so the writers had J instead turn his vengeful eye towards Smurf’s sons, essentially for not standing up to her in their youth. They were victims of her abuse, too. That’s something the show showed us multiple times while she was alive and weirdly, drove home even harder with flashbacks after her character was dead. And yet the writers chose to lean back into the most obvious ending. One that felt like it was outlined in season one. For me, if you’re going to do something so bold as to kill off the main villain of the show in season four of six, you have to be willing to adjust. To change things and explore new paths and new endings. By not doing that, by sticking with what was likely the original ending, it made basically everything we’ve seen since Smurf’s death feel pointless. Why did we go through any of this? Why not just end the show at season four then? I want to stress again: I didn’t even hate this season. It more or less worked. But I think I’m just disappointed. This show had always done a good job of surprising me. Of swerving when I didn’t expect it. And for its big finale, it rode right along the rails to an inevitable, unsurprising finish.

11. The Book of Boba Fett (Season 1 - 2021-2022, Disney+) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - There’s some fun stuff in here and certainly some wonkiness. It’s weirdly more The Mandalorian season 2.5 than its own separate thing. It’s like if a TV show took four episodes in the middle of the season and followed a side character for a while, which I guess is the sort of experimental thing you can do in the age of streaming. In that sense, it’s certainly not my favorite season of The Mandalorian, but entertaining nonetheless.

10. Mr. Mayor (Season 2 - 2022, NBC) (Last year’s ranking: 7) - This was a very funny show and I was really enjoying it which meant it was only a matter of time until it was canceled. It felt like it had a lot of life left in it and it’s a real shame that it’s already gone.

9. Love, Victor (Season 3 - 2022, Hulu) (Last year’s ranking: 8) - Love, Victor is another show, like Animal Kingdom, that had a messy final season. Also, like Animal Kingdom, I enjoyed it anyway. I can just also acknowledge that it was a bit of a mess. For the first five or six episodes this year, everything was rolling along like a normal season, and then, sort of suddenly, in the last couple of episodes, everything picks up the pace to an extreme level. Plots are wrapped up, characters break up and get together with other people, big life decisions are made, and then the show kind of just ends. I have no real knowledge of the situation, but seasons one and two had ten episodes apiece and season three had eight. My guess is that the producers were told late in the process that season three was the end and they needed to wrap things up, so they tried to do that as quickly as possible in the remaining episodes they had. And it wraps up fine – the characters all sort of sprint to their satisfying endpoints – but you definitely don’t get a lot of time to catch your breath as it does.

8. American Auto (Season 1 - 2021-2022, NBC) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - Created by the same guy who created Superstore and it has a lot of that show’s DNA in it. Not that it’s particularly original DNA. It’s a workplace comedy. But this is a good one. It performed well right out of the gate and had a couple of really excellent episodes in its first season.

7. Our Flag Means Death (Season 1 - 2022 - HBO Max) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - A delightful comedy that had a surprising amount of layers to it. You think it’s going to be a silly pirate show but it unfolds into this unexpectedly sweet love story. Great characters.

6. Obi-Wan Kenobi (Miniseries - 2022, Disney+) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - Like The Book of Boba Fett, there’s definitely a little wonkiness to this, but there’s a lot of excellent stuff as well. It’s great to see Ewan McGregor back in this role and he does a wonderful job with it. Really strong finish.

5. Only Murders in the Building (Season 2 - 2022, Hulu) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - It’s fun enough just watching Steve Martin and Martin Short play off of each other and do their thing. It’s even better when you add Selena Gomez, who is, weirdly, a fantastic third person in this grouping. It’s even better when you add in a compelling mystery at the core of the season. This is a cleverly written show with a fun cast of characters and a surprising bit of humanity as well.

4. Moon Knight (Miniseries - 2022, Disney+) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - First off, Oscar Isaac is so good at the center of this. He plays multiple characters in this and each one has his own charm. The show itself is a real ride. It’s only six episodes but it reinvents itself like three times throughout. It’s funny, it’s trippy and mind-bending, it has solid action pieces. If there’s one knock against it, the ending is fairly weak. It’s a shame it couldn’t really stick the landing, but what came before was very strong and that’s why it’s up here.

3. Succession (Season 3 - 2021, HBO) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - I’d been meaning to catch up on this show for a while and finally did and it is as good as everyone says. So sharply written. Great score. Fantastic acting from the entire cast.

2. Hawkeye (Miniseries - 2021, Disney+) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - The MCU’s Die Hard. It’s six lean episodes that are all a ton of fun. The heroes are great, they have plus chemistry and play off each other well. The villains are unique. The action scenes are excellently done. The dialogue is strong. There are some fun twists and turns. It’s not the most groundbreaking show but it just delivers episode after episode and I enjoyed it immensely.

1. Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty (Season 1 - HBO) (Last year’s ranking: N/A) - I love what this show did with the sports drama. It understood that the story it was telling, about the 1980s Showtime Lakers, had all these personalities that were larger than life, so it decided to tell the story like that. Go bigger than big. Everything about this is going for it. It’s shot and edited over the top. The plots are exaggerated versions of what happened. The acting is big. John C. Reilly is doing an amazing job as Jerry Buss but there’s great acting from just about the whole cast.

I do feel like it’s almost a little unfair to have so many Disney+ miniseries near the top of the list. They have huge budgets and only have to support six episodes versus twenty or so. I should probably have some kind of weighted system or something to balance that out but that’s way too much math so I’m not going to do that.

Enjoy the Emmys.

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Annual Lists of TV Shows I Saw the Past Year

#reviews #Annual Lists of TV Shows I Saw The Past Year

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