#cary dubek

[deatwithdignity]

okayyy we love girlfailures sisters and their queer brothers

#schitt's creek #alexis rose #david rose #the other two #cary dubek #brooke dubek #it's always sunny in philadelphia #iasip #dee reynolds #dennis reynolds #succession #shiv roy #roman roy #sarah snook #kieran culkin

[harrytheehottie]

the other two hbo max you’ll always be famous

#the other two #cary dubek

[pomegranate]

#the other two #brooke gets her hands dirty #drew tarver #emily overruled #cary dubek #okay i queued this so it would post the morning this ep comes out

[wildwren]

happy pride to queer icon cary dubek

#the other two #cary dubek #happy pride!

[sillypenguinwitch]

skam reference on the other two??

#i know they said love victor but this is clearly inspired by skam right? #the other two #cary dubek #skam #isak and even #evak

[postguiltypleasures]

My Peak TV Journey *The Other Two*

While it was on, few shows were as deliriously funny as The Other Two. It was a slow burn of a showbiz satire mixed with family sitcom. I miss it already. But I have to acknowledge that right before the final episode The Hollywood Reporter broke a story on complaints to HR about series creators Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider. HR investigated and dismissed the claims. Most likely this just means they did not reach their extremely high standard of what would make it a hostile work environment. It doesn’t mean the events did not happen. I’ve seen some posts since then about how this is a sign that Kelly and Schneider are the real life Carey and Brooke Dubek. There is some truth to this. I don’t know how to process how it affects my feelings about the show. And the news brought out a lot of feelings. 

While watching the first two seasons, I noticed that the seasons started out more sad than funny then became zanier and funnier in a way that is really grounded in that sad base. The final season went in the opposite direction, starting in screwball, manic comedy and then slowly getting into the dark, sad base. It was pretty dark. The season showed worst of Carey and Brooke, and it was necessary. I loved it, it hurt. 

Brooke’s plot about wanting to switch careers to something that would “do good” was painfully relatable. It was particularly sharp about how people get lazy in their responsibilities when they have the assurance that the project they are working on will “do good.” Of course this was spurred on by Brooke’s combined jealousy of her fiancé, Lance and feeling unworthy of him. And while watching her do a variety of awful things to prove either that she really is good, and/or that he’s not as good as he seems, I often thought that she didn’t deserve him. I admire how much her portrayer, Heléne York, was willing to go for something that ugly. In the end, I cheered their reconciliation because I love their dynamic at their best, not that I think they’re good together. And while they were broken up she dated a couples of billionaires and it was a great encapsulation of why hating billionaires is so fun and necessary now. 

In the first two seasons Cary spent so much energy on his career and sexual frustrations, but this season proved that finally getting some success isn’t going to make him better. This was embodied by his new boyfriend Lucas Lamber Moy, an actor who was always in character and for that reason was frequently unable to have sex. Lucas’s roles in everything from a Love, Simon spin-off, to a Hallmark Christmas movie and an incomprehensible and interminable Broadway play that is apparently about AIDS. Lucas alternately frustrated and excited Carey. It leads to revelation about even professional success isn’t going fix what broke in Carey. He over invests in Lucas, a person he can’t really know, while destroying his relationship with his best friend Curtis Paltrow. (I was surprised that there was so much Curtis in this season as his actor, Brandon Scott Jones, is one of the regulars on CBS’s Ghosts. I assumed he’d be available less because of that commitment. As a side note, I did enjoy when Carey’s actor, Drew Tarver, guest stared on Ghosts as a local cult leader.) In the mean time his plot gets the best satire of the show business. His advancing career includes his voice role as Globby, the “gay icon” in a Disney franchise and his reoccurring role in a CBS procedural, Emily Overruled. The latter plot, while funny, made the later allegations against the creators unsurprising to me. It set up something of a false dichotomy, where you can either have a stable, 9-5 set, making a show now one really watched, or making something exciting, that people will really care about, but must make allowances for people behaving in more erratic fashions. Arguably, the end of Lucas’s story tempers this thesis, but not enough. It was a wild ride that at some point involved a chorus of gay men in diapers driving maniacally to get to high school reunions while singing a variation of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”. I laughed a lot. 

Brooke and Carey reaching their lows was also rough on their mother Pat, who was experiencing isolation on multiple fronts. It was poignant and often absurd. Pat’s portrayers Molly Shannon a treasure. Pat may not actually be as good a mother as she wants to be seen as. She put Chase in an exploitative situation. She’s bad with boundaries. But her surreal experience of fame, and inability to return to her previous life was a great journey. I’m kind of sad she and Streeter didn’t end up together. I find Ken Marino weirdly endearing, and they were cute together. But she did need better boundaries between her work and personal lives. 

The youngest Dubek, Chase, aka ChaseDreams played by Case Walker without any guile, was not in much of the final season. But he was always a peripheral character for a story his viral success kicked off. The first season included some great ridiculous songs and ended with the revelation that he could not really sing. Since then much of his plot has been about his management (including his sister Brooke) gets him non singing jobs while avoiding telling him why he couldn’t sing. There was some humor in this, but as a lover of comedy songs, I wish there were more ChaseDreams songs. (I’d even take more in universe songs not by ChaseDreams like the “Jesus Fucking Slays” one from season two.) Chase has generally been less of a character than a vehicle for jokes about talent management and Hollywood’s current direction. (Or really, their pre-strike direction.) Over the course of the season Chase became more aware of the reality of his situation, but he never really rebelled against it. How could he? All his possible rebellions have been pre-scripted by management.

As ChaseDreams main director, Shuli, played by Wanda Sykes, often did bad, but she always had a point and did it competently. She considered Chase’s music so bad that she created Q. QAnon is awful in the real world, but the idea that QAnon started to distract from a bad album is hilarious. But Shuli’s bigger impact is as Brooke’s reluctant mentor, showing her the ropes and not having time for her bull. She didn’t have much of an arc, but she was always fun to watch.

While wrapping up I just need to say that this show was beautifully shot and staged. In scenes like Carey and Lucas’s first date at an indoor pool and Chase falling in love at first sight in a way that parodied the Baz Lerhman film William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, part of me was just bowled over by how good looking it was. The series ended in a way that was appropriate for its characters, and I wouldn’t want what I heard of the behind the scenes situation to continue, but I’m going to miss it. 

#My Peak TV Journey #Peak TV #The Other Two #brooke dubek #Heléne York #Cary Dubek #drew tarver #Brandon Scott Jones #Curtis Paltrow #lance arroyo #Pat Dubek #molly shannon #Chris Kelly #Sarah Schneider #Lucas Lambert Moy #Chase Dubek #ChaseDreams #Case Walker #Wanda Sykes #Shuli Kucerac

[vanesawye]

jonathan byers loves this song!

#the other two #stranger things #jonathan byers #will byers #cary dubek #chasedreams #chase dubek #gay #lgbt #Spotify #tori spring also loves this song

[erraticcat]

maybe one of the most significant examples of 'life imitates art' in this day and age. showstopping stuff.

#literally #the other two #cary and brooke dubek you will always be famous to me you glorious pieces of shit

[palmer]

Collabed with the other two

#cary dubek was out at the club last night lol

[deatwithdignity]

the other two has the best writing on television

#the other two #helene yorke #ken marino #brooke dubek #cary dubek #molly shannon #drew tarver #ben platt

[gravything]

I’ve been watching streamer reacts for Nimona—as a new-to-me way to roll around in the thing—and I’m enjoying seeing reactions to the big beats and reveals as well as the variety of littler things that matter to different people or hit differently. it’s like being in different (tiny) audiences. the first one I picked up was (probably?) a queer streamer who emoted a lot of joy and commented on the queer themes; another react picked out different elements of foreshadowing and did some different character speculation; another one pauses to talk about visuals.

one thing I’m putting together now from a handful of these is, even if some of the plot or twists are simple, there is so much trope subversion in the visual and narrative storytelling. like SO MUCH.

oh, right, I forgot; one of the other great ways of rolling around in a new favorite media thing is to go read the TVTropes page. this one is so new I don’t know if the page will be very settled yet, but I’m positive there’s plenty to talk about there.

also, streamers keep commenting about how so much happens and it’s been 10, 20 minutes. like how an entire plot line seems to have happened before half the runtime is up. it’s cool.

#gravy watches nimona 2023 #more like… #gravy watches other people watch things #gravy truly is cary dubek #if I could sit in a chair watching the people I love watching the media I love I WOULD #nimona 2023

[stewystew]

Where are my failsiblings I miss my failsiblings

#this post is about cary and brooke dubek bc I can’t remember when episodes go up #but it can also be me waiting for gemstones and missing succession

[wildwren]

this goo is homosexual?

#no one else will ever be cary dubek

[angelmotifs]

the other two season 2 episode 4 pat hosts just another regular show... like if you CRIED

[bpdjennamaroney]

cary dubek gets cast in a rwrb-esque film and he wants to do justice to the part & he sees a therapist to talk about his lingering trauma & pours his heart and soul into the craft & learns queer history & reads de profundis & then finally he meets his costar who is best known for playing a bully on cw’s short-lived jughead spinoff and the first thing he says is “dude can you believe gay guys can bone missionary style”

[googledocsdyke]

the thing about drew tarver as cary dubek is that he lands, in both face and affect, at the EXACT intersection of jason bateman as michael bluth and josh radnor as ted mosby. But gay. And somehow worse

#the other two