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rosesutherlandwrites · 5 years

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I Miserabili-Episode 3

I found my entire watch this week plagued by That Other Adaptation. Because this version feels like it’s showing every way they’ve gotten it wrong.

Fantine: in episode two she sunk into misery on the exact same trajectory, within the same length of time and it was heartbreaking but you never had to watch cringing as awful things happened. It was enough to know that they did and how Fantine was effected by it all.

This episode: we start with the Thenardiers, who continue to be generally awful and slimy, and appear to be in some financial trouble themselves, but the day is saved when they get a letter and 300 francs from M.Madeline to settle Fantine’s debts, and asking them to bring Cosette to her. Of course, they instead decide that Fantine has a rich lover now and Cosette is a gold mine, and start working on a letter back. A little bonus here: Baby Gavroche--we don’t see him, but the exchange about how Mme T should go shut him up is there. Also, honourable mention to the guy in this scene who implies that Thenardier is in the direct employ of Satan himself. To his face. Bravo Monsieur, whoever you are.

Next we catch up with Fantine at the hospital--there is bit or Urgently Whispered Exposition between...random hospital lady and Soeur Simplice. (An aside: Simplice is gorgeous. Seriously. I am having terribly sinful thoughts about a nun. Who is older than my grandmother, in real life. Kill me.) Madeline took off to Arras at the crack of dawn, who knows why. Fantine wakes, hears he’s gone and assumes he is off to fetch Cosette, and gets a heartbreaking speech about how happy she will be to see her and what she expects she’ll be like now that Five Years Have passed. GUYS THERES AN ACTUAL TIMELINE and it made sense and was just addressed by a character see DAVIES YOU HACK IT ISN”T THAT HARD. Also this is kind of genius: we haven’t seen Cosette since Fantine left her as a toddler, and now we are going off of Fantine’s hopes for her and when we see what state she is actually in it is going to be HEARTBREAKING. The random lady actually walks out on this scene to go and hold her OWN daughter, this is how bad we feel for Fantine. The doctor comes to look at her, and listens. He says nothing but you can tell things are not good.

Meanwhile: Madelaine’s carriage has blown a wheel. Perhaps he won’t make it after all? Ha, psych! Here is another carriage. He continues on. They could have cut this out. It’s totally book accurate though, and it is well acted. You can see that JVJ keeps hoping that this is A SIGN that God doesn’t want him to expose himself.

He arrives just in time for the Trial. I am not parsing this whole thing. it’s more than half the episode(thought on that below). It’s all well done, and full of unexpected humour, a proper courtroom drama. And one moment where I would have given a great deal for a closeup on Valjean/Madeline for pure comic value, but it was not to be. The same actor who plays Valjean also plays Champmathieu!!! with different hair and bad teeth. This guy is bloody incredible and i love him? Madeline doesn’t stand up and admit who he is until the very end--hoping that they might just let the innocent man off, but no such luck. The entire end of this scene is...brilliant. Just brilliant. This soft spoken man, explaining who he is, and what prison made him into, and how he thought he might just become one of the good people again, but apparently not. All is silence in the stunned room, and he simply walks away...end credits over the sound of a horse running. A CW note for this scene--one lawyer, describing says that Champmathieu is simple...and then decides to push it further, to say that he is mentally challenged. The italian dialogue says he is “an idiot” (or so i believe...my italian is very very VERY limited), but the subtitles translate this as he “is retarded”. I get what they are trying to say, and that they are (i think) trying to use somewhat period-appropriate language (?) but for me at least, that’s not a word i expect to see just dropped in like that anymore. I consider it a slur, and it makes me cringe hard. So I thought I should let you know it’s in there.

Like i said above--this scene was super long and they probably could have cut...a lot of it, had they wanted to. The entire scene with the broken wheel could have gone too. I almost feel like they just needed the events to take up the full hour for TV, and that there was to much they HAD to tell to fit it onto the end of the poor episode or the start of the next. But.

BUT.

They didn’t make up anything to fill the time. No forest peeing. Nothing added to make it more edgy and timely. They just...KEPT STUFF FROM THE BOOK IN. THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE AN ACCURATE ADAPTATION. By giving characters room to breathe and show more of themselves, not by CHANGING THEIR MOST BASIC MOTIVATIONS. By making your timeline as clear as it can possibly be, not by SHIFTING IMPORTANT EVENTS AROUND AND SCREWING WITH HUGE PLOT POINTS.

BY TELLING THE AMAZING STORY THAT ALREADY EXISTS AND NOT MAKING CRAP UP TO MAKE IT “RELEVANT” AND “SEXY” AND STOKE YOUR OWN EGO.

ANyhoooooooooo. I came here not to throw major shade at the Beeb, but to review something else and look where I ended up. The long and short of it: I Mis is still knocking it out of the park as far as I’m concerned. And Andrew Davies can suck my metaphorical duck.

#i miserabili #so good #the most accurate adaptation #so far anyway #this degenerated hard at the end #ALL CAPS #bbc les mis salt #adaptations #les miserables #i am aware it says duck #this got long

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cometsweepandleonidsfly · 5 years

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David Sims: “ As a fan of the TV show, I felt battered into submission. This season has been the same story over and over again: a lot of tin-eared writing trying to justify some of the most drastic story developments imaginable, as quickly as possible....[T]ime and time again in recent years, Benioff and Weiss have opted for grand cinematic gestures over granular world building, and Drogon burning the Throne to sludge was their last big mic drop.

Spencer Kornhaber: The penultimate episode of Game of Thrones gave us one of the most dramatic reversals in TV history, with the once-good queen going genocidal. The finale gave us yet another historic reversal, in that this drama turned into a sitcom. Not a slick HBO sitcom either, but a cheapo network affair, or maybe even a webisode of outtakes from one. Tonally odd, logically strained, and emotionally thin, “The Iron Throne” felt like the first draft of a finale.

When Dany torched King’s Landing last week, viewers were incensed, but I’d argue it was less because the onetime hero went bad than because it wasn’t clearwhy she did. Long-simmering madness? Sudden emotional break? Tough-minded strategy? A desire to implement an innovative new city grid? The answer to this would seem to help answer some of the show’s most fundamental inquiries about might and right, little people and greater goods, noble nature and cruel nurture. Thrones has been shaky quality-wise for some time now, but surely the show would be competent enough to hinge the finale around the mystery of Dany’s decision.

Nope. The first parts of the episode loaded up on ponderous scenes of the characters whose horror at the razing of King’s Landing had been made plenty clear during the course of the razing. Tyrion speculated a bit to Jon about what had happened—Dany truly believed she was out to save the world and could thus justify any means on the way to messianic ends—but it was, truly, just speculation. When Jon and Dany met up, he raged at her, and she gave some tyrannical talk knowing what “the good world” would need (shades of “I alone can fix it,” no?). But whether her total firebombing was premeditated, tactical, or a tantrum remained unclear. Whether she was always this deranged or just now became so determines what story Thrones was telling all along, and Benioff and Weiss have left it to be argued about in Facebook threads.

The Dany speechifying that we did get in this episode was, notably, not in the common tongue. Though conducted in Dothraki and Valaryian and not German, her victory rally was clearly meant to evoke Hitler in Triumph of the Will. It also visually recalled the white-cloaked Saruman rallying the orc armies in The Two Towers, another queasy echo. People talk about George R. R. Martin “subverting” Tolkien, but on the diciest element of Lord of the Rings—the capacity for it to be seen as a racist allegory, with Sauron’s horde of exotic brutes bearing down on an idyllic kingdom—this episode simply took the subtext and made it text. With the Northmen sitting out the march, the Dothraki and Unsullied were cast as bloodthirsty others eager to massacre a continent. Given all the baggage around Dany’s white-savior narrative from the start, going so heavy on the hooting and barking was a telling sign of the clumsiness to come.

Jon’s kiss-and-kill with Dany led to the one moment of sharp emotion—terror—I felt over the course of this bizarrely inert episode. That emotion came not from the assassination itself but rather from the suspense about what Drogon would do about it. For the dragon to roast the slayer of his mother would have been a fittingly awful but logical turn. Instead, Drogon turned his geyser toward the Iron Throne. Whether Aegon’s thousand swords were just a coincidental casualty of a dragon’s mourning or, rather, the chosen target of a beast with a higher purpose—R’hllor take the wheel?—is another key thing fans will be left to argue about.

Then came the epilogue, a parade of oofs. David, you say you were satisfied by where this finale moved all its game pieces, and if I step back … well, no, I’m not satisfied with Arya showing a sudden new interest in seafaring, but maybe I can be argued into it. What I can’t budge on is the parody-worthy crumminess of the execution. Take the council that decides the fate of Westeros. It appears that various lords gathered to force a confrontation with the Unsullied about the prisoners Tyrion and Jon Snow and the status of King’s Landing. But then one of those prisoners suggests they pick a ruler for the realm. They then … do just that. Right there and then. Huh?

It really undoes much of what we’ve learned about Westeros as a land of ruthlessly competing interests to see a group of far-flung factions unanimously agree to give the crown to the literal opposite of a “people person.” Yes, the council is dominated by protagonist types whom we know to be good-hearted and tired of war. But surely someone—hello, new prince of Dorne! What’s up, noted screamer Robin Arryn?—would make more of a case for another candidate than poor Edmure Tully did. Rather than hashing out the intrigue of it all as Thrones once would have done, we got Sam bringing up the concept of democracy and getting laughed down. The joke relied on the worst kind of anachronistic humor—breaking the fourth wall that had been so carefully mortared up over all these years—and much of the rest of the episode would coast on similarly wack moments.

It’s “nice” to see beloved characters ride off into various sunsets, but I balk at the notion that these endings even count as fan service. What true fan of Thronesthinks this show existed to deliver wish fulfillment? I’m not saying I wanted everyone to get gobbled up by a rogue zombie flank in the show’s final moments. Yet rather than honoring the complication and tough rules that made Thrones’ world so strangely lovable, Benioff and Weiss waved a wand and zapped away tension and consequence. You see this, for example, in the baffling arc of Bronn over the course of Season 8. What was the point of having him nearly kill Jaime and Tyrion if he was going to just be yada-yadaed onto the small council at the end?

One thing I can’t complain about: the hint that clean water will soon be coming to Westeros. Hopefully, someone will use it to give Ghost a bath. As the doggy and his dad rode north of the Wall with a band of men, women, and children, the message seemed to be that where death once ruled, life could begin. Winter Is Leaving. It’d seem like a hopeful takeaway for our own world, except that it’s not clear, even now, exactly how and why the realm of Thrones arrived at this happy outcome.

Lenika Cruz: Do I have answers? Who do you think I am—Bran the Broken? Before I get into this episode, I need to acknowledge how unfortunate it is that Tyrion decided to give the new ruler of the Six Kingdoms a name as horrifyingly ableist as Bran the Broken. You could, of course, argue that the moniker was intended as a reclamation of a slur or as a poignant callback to Season 1’s “Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things,” when Tyrion and Bran first bonded. But given the “parade of oofs” this finale provided—including the troubling optics of Dany’s big speech—it’s hard to make excuses for the show.

Now that we’ve gotten our “the real Game of Thrones/Iron Throne/Song of Ice and Fire was the friends we made along the way” jokes out of our system, where to begin? I basically agree with Spencer’s scorched-earth take on “The Iron Throne.” I was already expecting the finale to be a disappointment, but I didn’t foresee the tonal and narrative whiplash that I experienced here. At one point during the small-council meeting, my mind stopped processing the dialogue because I was in such disbelief about the several enormous things that had happened within the span of 15 minutes: Jon stabs Dany. Instead of roasting Jon, Drogon symbolically melts the Iron Throne and carries the limp body of his mother off in his talons. A conclave of lords and ladies of Westeros is convened, and Tyrion is brought before them in chains, and they know Dany was murdered, and Tyrion argues for an entirely new system of government while being held prisoner by the Master of War of the person he just conspired to assassinate. Excuse me? (The way that Grey Worm huffed, “Make your choice, then,” at those assembled reminded me of an impatient father waiting for his children to pick which ice-cream flavor they want.)

David, Spencer—of the three of us, I’ve been the most stubborn about thinking this final season is bad and holding that badness against the show. I don’t fault viewers who’ve become inured to the shoddy writing and plotting, and who’ve been grading each episode on a curve as a result. But I personally haven’t been able to get into a mind-set where I can watch an episode and enjoy it for everything except stuff like pacing issues, rushed character development, tonal dissonance, the lack of attention to detail, unexplained reversals, and weak dialogue. All of those problems absolutely make the show less enjoyable for me, and I haven’t learned to compartmentalize them—even though I know how hard it must have been for Benioff and Weiss to piece together an airtight final act solely from Martin’s book notes.

...Much like with last week’s episode, I can actually see myself being on board with many of the plot points in the finale—if only they had been built up to properly and given the right sort of connective tissue. For all the episode’s earnest exhortations about the power of stories, “The Iron Throne” itself didn’t do much to model that value.

For example, I can’t be the only one who was let down, and at a loss for a larger takeaway, after seeing a high-stakes contest between two ambitious female rulers devolve after both became unhinged and got themselves killed. After all the intense discussion about gender politics that Thrones has spurred, and after seeing characters such as Sansa, Brienne, Cersei, Daenerys, and Yara reshape the patriarchal structures of Westeros, we’ve ended up with a male ruler (who once said, “I will never be lord of anything”) installed on the charismatic recommendation of another man and served by a small council composed almost entirely of … men.

Perhaps there’s no deeper meaning to any of this. Or perhaps this state of affairs is a commentary on the frustrating realities of incrementalism. I am, of course, beyond pleased that Sansa Stark has at least become the Queen in the North—a title that she, frankly, deserved from the beginning. But I haven’t forgotten that this show only recently had her articulate the silver lining of being raped and tortured. Nor am I waving away the fact that Brienne spent some of her last moments on-screen writing a fond tribute to a man who betrayed her and all but undid his entire character arc in one swoop. My sense is that the show’s writers didn’t think about Thrones resetting to the rule of men much at all, and that they were instead relishing having a gaggle of former misfits sitting on the small council. See? the show seemed to cry. Change!

At times, Thrones gestured more clearly to the ways in which the story was going a more circular route; this was especially true of the Starks. Jon headed up to Castle Black and became a kind of successor to Mance Rayder—someone leading not because of his last name or bloodline but because of the loyalty he’s earned. Arya’s seafaring didn’t feel out of character to me—it fit with her sense of adventure and reminded me of her voyage across the Narrow Sea to Braavos all those years ago. Sansa became Queen in the North in a scene that recalled the debut of “Dark Sansa” in the Vale, but that felt like a true acknowledgment of how much her character has transformed. I’ll admit, the crosscutting of the scenes showing the Starks finding their own, separate ways forward was beautifully done. It made me wish the episode as a whole had been more cohesive, less rushed, and more emotionally resonant.

Spencer, I think you smartly diagnosed so many of the big-picture problems with the finale—the sitcommy feel, the yada-yadaing of major points, the many attempts at fan service. So rather than elaborate even more, I’ll end this review by saying something sort of obvious: Viewers are perfectly entitled to feel about the ending of Game of Thrones however they want to. After eight seasons, they have earned the right to be as wrathful or blissed-out on this finale as they want; it’s been a long and stressful ride for us all. I’m genuinely happy that there are folks who don’t feel as though the hours and hours they’ve devoted to this show have been wasted. I know there are many others who wish they could say the same thing.”

#game of thrones #spoilers #such rotten storytelling

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vantemei · 6 years

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one thing everyone should know is: do not underestimate park jimin. bad things will happen. jeongguk is a firm believer in this. it’s a given that math majors as a species are stubborn bastards and have tendency to take every little thing as a challenge.

the minute jimin saw yoongi sitting in the campus cafe with a sleeping taehyung resting on his shoulder and a fond smile on his face he made it his mission to make yoongi admit his soft spot feelings for the younger boy. it’s going about as well as one might think. while jimin is stubborn and determined, yoongi is in denial and self deprecating to the point that any positive emotion comes with a feeling of anxiety and a fear of it being ripped away.

if you ask jimin, if you ask anyone to be honest, it’s clear as day that yoongi has a soft spot for the younger boy. whenever taehyung isn’t with his brother or jimin and jeongguk then he’s spotted randomly around campus passed out in the lap or on the shoulders of a content looking min yoongi. where one is comfortable the other will appear.

jimin even walked in on yoongi lounging in his and taehyung’s dorm room on the couch jimin had picked out with his hands running gently through taehyung’s hair while the younger slept with a do[y smile on his face. it had been the defining factor in jimin taking on the challenge of operation ‘yoongi is an idiot in love with taehyung and taetae is a cute fool who also loves yoongi’.

it’s just an unfortunate circumstance of proximity that jeongguk has been roped into helping him.

plan 1: truth or dare

this is gonna work. jimin is sure of it. a drunk yoongi is an honest yoongi and taehyung can’t drink alcohol so he’ll be completely sober to hear yoongi confess. jimin is a genius.

“ok but i don’t understand why the party has to be at my dorm.” jeongguk whines even as he grabs the party pack of meat and puts it in their basket.

“because, jeonggukie, we can’t have it at my dorm. taehyung lives there. we can’t have it at namjoon’s because he lives with yoongi and hoseok lives with jin hyung so we can’t have it at theirs.”

“but why? i get why we can’t do it at yoongi’s but why not jin hyung?”

“because he spoils taehyung, you know that. if we have the party at jin hyung’s then taehyungie will just play with odengie and eomukie the whole time and he won’t be around for drunk yoongi hyung!”

jeongguk sighs because he can’t really argue with that, and once the cuteness of taehyung is combined with the two sugar gliders no one will have the heart to tear them apart, no matter how determined jimin is his heart is soft as marshmallows for taehyung.

“plus you’re the only one who lives alone so you have the most space.”

jeongguk groans as they head to the alcohol aisle.

*later at jeongguk’s dorm because im lazy*

“hyung, truth or dare?” jeongguk giggles and kicks towards namjoon who is more focused on watching hoseok attempt to fit thirteen slices of pickled radish in his mouth then the game at this point.

“hyuuuung!” jeongguk whines and jimin giggles, calls him cute in slurred satoori.

“huh?” namjoon finally snaps back to the game and taehyung laughs from where he’s leaned against a tipsy jin who keeps petting his hair and cooing at him.

“idiot, he said truth or hair. pick!” yoongi says with absolute confidence and hoseok chokes on the ninth radish slice in laughter, yoongi slapping his back way to hard with drunken strength.

“hair!”

jeongguk can barely pull himself together and it looks like taehyung is having the same problem as he collapses completely in jin’s arms, body shaking with laughter. jimin just stares in amazement at the way taehyung’s hand is flapping in the air and holds his own hand up next to it, eyes widening with a tiny gasp.

“whats- ahahahaa- what’s your worst memory from a party?”

namjoon’s face drops immediately and taehyung’s laughter grows louder by at least two decibels.

“taehyung-ah i’m sorry,” is all namjoon can say before he looks like he might cry and it sends taehyung laughing like a seal, gasping for breath as he smacks jin’s knee repeatedly. jin yells but his hands keep combing through taehyung’s hair gently and yoongi glares at his hand like a sibling who’s brother got the bigger piece of cake.

“what? what hap-happened? taehyung hyung hyung?” jeongguk counts the ‘hyungs’ on his fingers.

“i- oh my god i can’t breathe- i walked in on namjoon hyung making out with a girl in my bed because he was too drunk to know it was my room and not his. i slept on the couch that night and joonie hyung washed everything in my room for me. twice.”

the group descends into laughter and namjoon looks like he want’s to find a hole and crawl in it.

“poor taehyungie, poor taetae, how could you do that namjoon? he’s so precious, how could you make him sleep on the couch?!” yoongi looks offended on taehyung’s behalf as he smacks jin’s hand away from the younger boy’s soft blonde hair and full on pulls taehyung towards him to hug his head against his chest and pet his face sympathetically.

taehyung, now sprawled over seokjin’s lap with his head clutched preciously to yoongi’s chest can’t hold back his laughter and it looks like me might develop abs in the next twenty minutes from how hard he’s laughing before his body suddenly goes limp and he falls silent.

namjoon, even in his past-tipsy state, is the one to notice first, a cry of ’taetae!’ leaving his lips as he lunges over the coffee table they were sitting around and pulls his brother’s limp form from his shocked silent friends.

taehyung remains completely limp as namjoon maneuvers him over his lap with practiced ease, making sure his body is flat and resting his brother’s head in his lap, gently brushing the hair back from his face.

“t-taetae? taetae?!” jimin’s shaking as he crawls closer to grab his friend’s hand, eyes welling with tears as he holds taehyung’s hand close to his chest.

“is he- is he ok?” it’s seokjin who asks, looking relatively sobered up since mere moments ago as he pat’s a shaken looking hoseok’s back. they all know what’s happening but they’re all a bit tipsy or more and none of them, save for jimin and namjoon, have seen taehyung have such a sudden cataplexic episode.

“yeah, he should be fine,” namjoon consoles them, hands running patiently through his brother’s hair.

“is he having a cata- calypso? ca-cala- cat dyslexic-?” “cataplexic?” "yeah! is he…is he having one of those?” yoongi looks grateful at namjoon for filling in his attempt at the word.

“yeah. they can happen when he get’s a sudden rush of emotion or laughs a lot. i should have been paying attention, making sure-”

“hyung, you’re doing what you can right now. you couldn’t have known this would happen. it just does, you know taehyungie hyung hate’s when you blame yourself.” jeongguk is the least drunk out of all of them, aside from taehyung who never drinks.

namjoon’s reply is cut off by a whimper and all eyes dart to taehyung, yoongi pulls jimin back to give taehyung some room.

taehyung whimpers again, a small 'hyung?’ coming out before a small pained moan.

“yeah, hyung’s here tae, it’s ok- you’re ok.”

taehyung whimpers again and his leg gives a small jolt before his eyes open. taehyung’s big brown eyes look scared and confused up at his brother, glossy with coming tears.

“hey, hey taetae, it’s ok. you’re ok. hyung is right here with you, we’re at jeongguk’s place. you remember? your friends are here bear, you’re ok.”

taehyung whimpers again and his hand twitches in jimin’s who pushes himself forward, eyes teary again as he leans over his best friend.

“taetae? are you ok? how do you feel? i’m right here taetae, i’m sorry.”

taehyung’s eyebrows furrow at that and namjoon runs a thumb over his cheeks to relax his face, brows relaxing as his gaze flickers between his brother and his best friend before slipping shut again, still awake by the way he releases a few more whimpers as his body gives small jolts in random places.

“taetae, i know you’re confused right now but i need you to tell me, are you going to sleep after this or do you want to stay awake? you can do whatever you want you just need to tell me so i can help you. can you talk yet taetae?” namjoon’s voice is the same comforting timbre it’s been since taehyung woke up and he waits patiently for taehyung’s answer.

“uph- umph-……up…hyung up…” taehyung is clearing having trouble with his words but namjoon gives a soothing hush. “you wanna stay up taetae? ok, then we’ll just take a break and then go back to the game ok? you can just take as much time as you need until you’re ready and then maybe we can watch a movie? guys?”

everyone agrees easily and taehyung seems comforted by it from the way he let’s himself relax against namjoon’s lap, content to wait for his control to come back as everyone draws back to choose a movie.

“taetae, are you sure you feel up to this? i can drop you at your place if you want, everyone will understand.” namjoon hasn’t stopped brushing his hand through taehyung’s hair and taehyung leans into it easily, tapping his fingers together one by one absently and curling his toes.

“i’m sure hyung, i want to stay.”

namjoon drops it there but he keeps his eye on taehyung, even as the younger sits up on his own and makes his way to the couch to sit between jimin and yoongi who readily make room for him. an hour later taehyung is asleep across the two, head resting in yoongi’s lap and legs thrown across a snoring jimin.

on second glance namjoon realizes yoongi is awake and staring at taehyung. one of his hands is holding the younger’s and he brushing his thumb softly over taehyung’s knuckles, smiling giddily as taehyung sighs in his sleep and turns to snuggle his face into yoongi’s stomach.

namjoon raises an eyebrow at the older male but says nothing, content that his brother is safe and ok.

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