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iknownothingihearnothing · 6 years

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BoJack Horseman: 5.2 The Dog Days Are Over

Kay, we ended episode 5.1 with the Goldfish Ladies doin’ their thang in BoJack’s pool. Aside: if their water ballet team isn’t called the Goldfish Ladies, I’ma be disappoint.

Fish Fridays have gotta be like The Purge for these ladies.

We also left off, at the tail end of the episode, with Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter. He was dropping her off at her new, um, let’s just call it “not a mansion in the Hollywoo Hills” after a trip and giving her a set of signed divorce papers.

“Take *that*, our marriage!” she joked awkwardly before leaving.

So, Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter are friendly but awks around each other. As tends to happen when exes who’ve seen each other nekkid many, many times try to stay friends with each other.

The episode starts with Diane crying in her car, mascara running down her face. She is wearing an outfit that is very unDianeish and she has cut her hair short. AKA the post-breakup haircut all girls know and eventually come to regret.

As poor Diane is cryin’ her eyes out over her canine ex-husband, uh, this happens:

This couple must be transplants from the underwater land BoJack went to for the premiere of Secretariat in season 3.

Still crying, Diane heads to the airport and asks to be taken as far away from Los Ageless as possible. She demands this of the airport attendant, who is an emu.

After the title sequence, Diane lands in Vietnam, and as she is walking through Hanoi, dodging people and reptiles alike (look, conspiracy theorists! lizard people!), Stefani calls, salivating for fresh content. Diane, if you remember, is a contributer at the website Girl Croosh, which I guess is a site for, like, everything.

She promises to write something up from there, the article of which becomes the Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Travel To Vietnam

I, personally, do not have ancestral roots with Vietnam...as far as I know. I took one of those Ancestry DNA tests a few weeks ago and am waiting on the results. As far as I know I could be 15 percent Tongan, which would be awesome.

I should visit Germany. Or Austria. Or Russia. Those I know I have roots to. Really close roots. Munich-y roots. My dad’s side of the family were from a valley near the Caucasus Mountains. I am literally Caucasian.

Sometimes, I don’t know whether to interested in the rich history or saddened and embarrassed at how white that is.

In VO, Diane explains that her family wasn’t much help in explaining to her where they came from when she was growing up, or their family history. We are shown a flashback of pre-teen Diane inquiring to her dad about just this, but he is busy with baseball. Likely a Red Sox game. Or a Red Fox game.

Furthermore, many of the stores and billboards bear her last name.

I know. Many people in Vietnam share surnames. One of my friend’s last name is Nguyen.

Everybody she passes, Diane continues, look like her (except the flamingo in the nón lá hat).But then a woman bumps into her and speaks Vietnamese to her and she has no idea what she’s saying.

At the gorgeous (cartoon) hotel, Diane checks in just as a gang of American filmmakers bust in; they are filming a movie in the hotel. It stars Laura Linney as a recently divorced woman who comes to Vietnam to find herself.

So much for escaping the LA life.

Diane puts on the dress she bought and the rice paddy hat but she still feels like a tourist.

Speaking of tourist--

Cut to Diane in her usual clothes plus the rice paddy hat appearing to take a selfie in front of the Thien Mu Pagoda.Then everything zooms out.

Pretending to be somewhere more awesome than where you actually are to make other people jealous of you on social media? The hell you say, that never happens!

Diane eats her chicken in the park when Mr. Peanutbutter calls, and, in his usual Mr. Peanutbutter way, inquires as to why she left his party early. He was gonna ask earlier but he was distracted by Todd getting his tongue stuck to the ice sculpture. Todd’s tongue swelled up, and Mr. Peanutbutter had to interfere between him and a mob boss when Todd started talking to him all muffled, the mob boss thinking he was making fun of his deaf sister.

Ya, don’t blame the mob boss.

She makes up an excuse about having a plane to catch to Vietnam while Mr. Peanutbutter literally catches his newspaper in his mouth like a good boy and he promises to pick her up like a good boy/ex-hubby. He is also glad that he is not paying for her phone bills anymore because that international call is gonna be bazongers

Wah wah wahhhhhh as joke falls flat.

In flashback, a still longhaired Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter, recently separated, are celebrating how friendly their separation is by having a divorce dinner. Their waitress turns out to be an excitable young pug by the name of Pickles and I need to call my next dog that. Not fit for a pug, tho. Maybe a dachshund.

She and Mr. Peanutbutter seem to hit it off right away, much to Diane’s annoyance. They both like water! And food scraps! And are full of boundless energy! Amazing! Diane just wants to know if he’s signed the divorce papers yet. Then suggests a housewarming party to curb his loneliness.

Back in the Bojackverse present, a family of American tourists dressed in American flag shirts and polos mistake Diane for a Vietnamese citizen and talk to her like she’s an idiot.

Yup yup yup. Reminds me of the tourist from California who carved her initials into the Roman Colosseum and then took a selfie.

I can go a few streets over and meet new people, Diane!

This is a bad reason to travel to Vietnam, Diane!

The internet exists, Diane!

At the hotel bar, Diane meets one of the only other Americans staying there, a dude working on Laura Linney’s movie about the recently divorced woman going to Vietnam to find herself. He appears to be a bald eagle, but we do not know that he is indeed bald because he is wearing a hat.

He is likely bald, tho.

I mean, unless people start fake tanning and fist-pumping there. Then I’d feel right at home.

In flashback, Diane hangs a painting of the gorgeous Te Huc Bridge at the Hoàn Kiếm Lake in her crappy new apartment just as BoJack stops by. While helping her move, he, in true blunt BoJack fashion, informs her that this place is a shithole and invites her to stay at his place for a bit. She likes the shithole though. It may be a shithole, but it is her shithole.

At Girl Croosh HQ, Stefani is signing a contract outside of their be-tented building. It seems that the “cockroaches at IT tried to unionize” so Stefani called an exterminator--ahem, “negotiator”. The exterminators, natch, are flies. She also requires that listicle from Diane of 5 Empowering Roles For Women Over 40 Who Would’ve Been Better Played By Jennifer Lawrence.

Somehow, I predict that role opposite that (now 58) year old actor Maggie Gyllenhaal didn’t get because she was told she was “too old” to play his love interest at the shocking age of 37 will go to JLaw. She’s, like, 28 now! That’s almost thirty!

Still in flashback, Diane’s trying to get work done in her shithole when a pipe leaks and a stray cat meows and someone burps. She shows up at BoJack’s door intoning “I’m a sad, sad girl with a dirty apartment” as was the phrase agreed upon she needed to utter if she ever needed a space.

Diane finishes her article there and has a glass of wine with BoJack before going back to her shithole. But it turns into...

Keep saying it, Diane. Maybe if you utter it enough times, it’ll actually come true! like the Darling kids shouting “I can fly!”

Diane mumbles drunkenly how weird it is that they are both single at the same time. BoJack knows why he thinks it’s weird, but why does she? It is just weird, they can totally make out and it’d be okay. But that is gross because he’s BoJack and he’s gross and she’s getting a divorce and allowed to be mean. Then, just as BoJack is ruminating on the last time Diane stayed in the guest room, when he went to New Mexico *andtotallydidnothookupwithateenager* she passes out on the couch in a drunken stupor.

In all my years of seeing therapists, not once has any of them advised me to fly to the capital of Vietnam.

Diane’s therapist also gossips about the non celebrities she sees. Including Demi who had a first husband named Bruce and a second named Ashton. And a client named Angelina J., who does not think of herself as an actress anymore.

An actress, a director, a humanitarian, a savior of all mankind, all in a painfully obvious attempt to keep the spotlight on her.

Yeah, I am not much of a Jolie fan.

Diane meets American Bald Eagle working on the Laura Linney movie at the bar and helps him order a drink. He thinks she’s a Vietnamese citizen. They walk through Hanoi’s market area, he tells her about his life in America, thinking she cannot understand a word he is saying, and she kisses him.

I have no bloody idea how you tongue a dude with a beak. There must be some particular angling involved.

American Bald Eagle takes her to Ha Long Bay...the set. It’s actually a backdrop for the Laura Linney movie. American Bald Eagle is the executive grip on the crew. He is Very Important. Or so he claims. But then, as they are perplexedly kissing again, a klieg light falls beside them and Diane curses. In English.

The jig is up!

Diane tries to defend her actions but American Bald Eagle ain’t havin’ it. She’s the bad guy here!

Diane is NOT having it, y’all.

Oooh, mic drop!

Number 9 reason to go to Vietnam:

She worries that this is similar to reason #5, which is Get Out Of Your Natural Habitat, but it’s whatever. Diane is getting divorced, she is owed a whatever.

In flashback, Diane has just chopped off her hair and she is wearing a kick jumpsuit looking all fly ready for her ex’s party but when BoJack arrives and compliments her she flies off the handle a bit, accusing him of trying to take advantage of her when she is vulnerable. He sighs and leaves, telling her that Mr. Peanutbutter will love her new hair.

At the party, Todd is wearing what he always is and eyes the ice swan greedily. Yes, he will lick it tonight. Oh, yes he will.

Oh, Todd. You are a delight.

Diane wanders into the library that used to be hers (her Belle-room) and bumps into Mr. Peanutbutter dressed in a tuxedo shirt and what look to be electric blue plastic pants. Carrying a dog bowl full of nachos.

Mr. Peanutbutter mumbles that she looks good. The new haircut really brings out her...neck. It is all really awkward and uncomfortable and Mr. Peanutbutter quickly finds an excuse to greet someone else.

PC hugs Diane and cries that she saw the whole thing; she will be her rock as long as it does not interfere with being Mr. Peanutbutter’s rock because they are both her friends and it also cannot interfere with her work, which is keeping her very bizzay.

There are a lot of heartbreakingly awkward moments in this episode. I kinda sympathize with PC, though. It’s always a fragile position to be in, being a friend of both parties in a divorce. There’s a fine line you have to tread.

In the present, Diane gets on a plane in Hanoi and calls BoJack to apologize for how shook she’s been post-divorce. She really just needs a friend right now. Get that, BoJack? A friend.

No more yanky your wanky, BoJack.

Or maybe do.

On the plane, none other than Laura Linney sits down beside Diane.

After she gets over her initial star struck reaction, Diane asks her how her movie ends. Does Laura find herself in Vietnam? Well, yes. Literally. She finds her clone sleeping with her ex. And they team up to take down the government.

Someone call Alex Jones!

But those, Diane says in VO, are not the real reasons to go to Vietnam. The real reason is because you see your ex-husband kissing someone else at a party.

Mr. Peanutbutter picks Diane up from the airport, we are shown the uncomfortable exchange from the first episode in his car, and just as she is about to leave with the signed divorce papers, Mr. PB admits that he is seeing someone. Who is not her.

Flashback to the party. PC is still rambling on about being supportive while talking on her phone about work related stuffs when Diane spots her ex and Pickles through a window. She kisses him, and, at first, Diane waves it off as just Mr. PB being drunk. Then, the golden retriever and the pug kiss more thoroughly, and poor Diane is crushed.

There. You can fully see the shock and heartache in her eyes, rendered perfectly through simple animation. Another reason why I heart this show so much.

Because even though she left him, even though she knows she made the right choice, it still frigging HURTS. Like shards of glass pricking her heart.

The heart is an unreasonable muscle.

Diane spends the next few frames drifting through her days. At her shithole apartment. At BoJack’s. On the plane. Even in Vietnam. In VO, she tells us she had hoped the vacation would give her some perspective, but it doesn’t. When she returns, she feels worse than ever.

And that is okay. It’s okay to ache. It’s okay to be confused. When your heart is crushed, nothing makes sense.

So, back in the present, Diane takes a deep breath, smiles a little, and says--

Wow, that was a great episode! I mean, they are all great, but this one was particularly awesome. Took FOREVER to cap, tho. I loved the artistry of the animated Vietnam, how beautiful Ha Long Bay and the Pagoda looked even rendered in animation. The attention to detail is exquisite.

The emotions were so real. When our hearts ache, whether it be after a horrible break up or a divorce or any kind of tragedy in our lives, we tend to be erratic like Diane was in this episode. We lash out at our friends. We try to doll ourselves up when we know we’re going to see ex boyfriends or girlfriends. We feel as if we’ve been stabbed when we glimpse them moving on when we cannot. Sometimes, we take unplanned trips. Or some of us spend a lot in lieu. I could not take such a trip as Diane took after the worst breakup of my life because I was in the middle of a semester...so I spent money at the local mall. Everything I earned. My paycheck was GONE as soon as I got it. I think I spent over a grand in one month alone.

We find ways to cope. And eventually, we start on the road to becoming okay again.

#Bojack Horseman #Bojack #bojack season 5 #recap

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 Episode 2 Review: The Nick Blaine Mystery Deepens

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This The Handmaid’s Tale review contains spoilers.

“A messy bitch who takes the big swings but doesn’t think about the consequences.” You could do worse for a description of June Osborne. In ‘Nightshade’, Moira’s words proved right when June followed her instinct that a brothelful of sitting-duck Commanders was too good an opportunity to miss. One bottle of homemade poison and David Bowie’s Suffragette City later, and Gilead had suffered another blow. That was the big swing. And now for the consequences.

One consequence of June sticking around to watch the fireworks at the brothel was leaving the Keyes household and its fugitive Handmaids without a leader. In the Guardian truck last time, and during the raid at the start of this episode, June was the one who kept the others cool, shushing and reassuring and giving orders to so they wouldn’t be detected. While she was out enjoying mass murder, her soldiers were alone. The only solace was Nick asking “Where are the Handmaids?”, indicating that they got away.

It was a dramatic shift in tone from director Colin Watkinson who took us from the heady, glam-rock-infused schadenfreude of seeing nightshade poured down those frat boy commanders’ throats, to the eerie dread awaiting June on her return to the farm. Doors open, houselights blazing, bullet casings on the ground… the safe house no longer safe. Turning its atmosphere on a dime is a speciality of this drama. Whatever’s happening in Gilead, dread is never far away.

Neither is mistrust. Was the safe house location leaked? Or were the Eyes’ suspicions raised by the disappearance of Guardian Pogue? If the latter, count that as another big swing June took without considering the consequences, which included the death of the kind Guardian who refused to leave June’s side. Esther may have very good reason to believe that there are no good men in Gilead, but she’s wrong. He was one of them.

On the question of good men: enter, Nick Blaine. Some serious redesign work was done on Max Minghella’s character in the last season to take him from lowly driver, sometime spy and reluctant Gileadean, to shady military supremo. That’s clearly where the show needs him to be for this next part of the story, but, unlike June’s traceable ascent from survivor to resistance fighter, Nick’s promotion feels frustratingly forced. The character’s been kept off-screen for so long, he’s the subject of another allegiance mystery, just like the one played with Commander Lawrence last season. Whose side is Nick really on? Mayday’s or Gilead’s? Can June trust him?

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 Episode 1 Review: Has the Story Outgrown the Limits of June’s Character?

By Louisa Mellor

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 3 Recap: Baby Nichole, June’s Flight Plan and the Waterfords’ Fall

By Louisa Mellor

Trust was in short supply between the Waterfords in their chapel scene. Serena’s attempt to appeal to Fred as her husband and not her commander fell flat. He saw through the act, and called her delusional if she really thinks Nichole is any more her daughter than his. In Canada, those two have been a couple of entwined poisonous cobras, taking it in turns to strike at each other. That could only go on for so long, apparently, as proven by the surprise news of Serena’s pregnancy. In narrative terms, the Waterfords finally conceiving feels like one pulled from the ‘what if?’ pile of ideas for characters whose story has run its course.

However unearned some of its plot developments might feel, The Handmaid’s Tale remains fluent in the complexities of abuse and trauma, as shown by Serena’s medical examination scene. Serena was physically abused by Fred, but according to the rules of Gilead – a regime that she had helped to create. Her collusion made her an apologist for her own abuse, normalising the amputated finger and whipping she’d suffered as proportional responses to her infringements of the rules. In just a few short exchanges from writer Kira Snyder, the show staged a miniature discussion about victimhood and complicity.

The examination’s real purpose, of course, was to lead towards the pregnancy announcement. Considering that all signs until now have pointed to Fred being infertile, Serena will no doubt see it as a miracle. (If Fred can father children, incidentally does that cast doubt on the identity of Nichole’s biological father?) It appears that the Waterfords’ hook-up en route to Canada bore fruit, which changes everything for motherhood-obsessed Serena. With her own biological child, will her battle for custody of Nichole still be as urgent?

Responsibility for Nichole and the other Gilead refugee children is chafing on Moira, who never planned on motherhood. Moira’s romantic, flirtatious scenes with her new girlfriend (played by UK actor Zawe Ashton) were a rare interlude that once upon a time, would only have been possible in a pre-Gilead flashback. It wasn’t that long ago that Moira and Emily were as shaky on their feet as the newly arrived Rita. Their stories show that recovery is real. Rita will get there too. As the Asher/James’ thread showed, leaving behind the familiar is an adjustment.

Speaking of the familiar, June’s brief flight of freedom is over and she’s back in bondage, for what, the fourth time? In an effective cliff-hanger, her most recent escape attempt ended in another recapture. What torment will Gilead put her through this time? How could it possibly top what we’ve already seen? Will familiarity and repetition be this show’s undoing?

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The Handmaid’s Tale season four episodes one to three are available to stream now on Hulu in the US. They will air on Channel 4 in the UK at a later date.

The post The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 Episode 2 Review: The Nick Blaine Mystery Deepens appeared first on Den of Geek.

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