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Sep. 26th, 2023 06:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
impyNow let's talk about non-AG stuff, shall we? Went to Walmart for the first time in eons Sunday after work. I went in to get groceries and realized holy fucking shit, the Teeter has better prices. When the fuck did that happen?
I also found Sig Toralei from the MH reboot a year after I stopped looking for her. I'm probably a little off on the timeline but I didn't expect to find her and I was so happy. Even when I realized her clearance price is the same as the normal price. Boo and bullfrogs indeed.
Did some decorating but I need to figure out what I'm doing with the bar. *muse* My brother bought me some decorations too. One is stupidly cute and the other two kind of match up nicely with two other sets I have:
The first is a mini blow mold black cat that lights up. The other two is a pair of DotD cat and dog. I have two smaller DotD cats and a pair of ghost cat/dog. So this kind of merges the two.
And because I wanted to catch up on some of my TV backlog, I finished S2 of Cruel Summer.
The obvious out of the way: Season 1 was better. I watched that one pretty much weekly, as it came out while I watched the first 3 episodes of S2 and then didn't watch anymore until yesterday. It ended on July 31st, btw so it's not like I didn't have time.
That being said, I enjoyed bits of S2. Large bits? I dunno, it's been eons since I watched S1 and I remember parts of it being very frustrating, so I'm trying not to compare them TOO much.
I will say, S2 didn't really work as well as a binge watching show because after awhile I just wanted to find someone who'd compiled all the various timelines into one straight line instead of having to bounce back and forth. It got worse each episode I went in until episode 9, which was a standalone and a standout.
If you're lost and have NO intention of watching S2, here's the short(er) version:
Anthology series that takes place over three timelines. S2 covers Summer 1999/Holiday 1999/Summer 2000. We follow:
- Rich foreign exchange student Isabella who has some mystery event from last winter in St. Barts and is very invested in making her friendship with Megan ironclad.
- Megan, our computer nerd who is poor and works to help her mother make ends meet, with a little sister who exists entirely to give Megan another person to rely on her Never Fucking Up. Megan is in love with her best friend Luke.
- Luke is the youngest son of a rich, important family in town. He's a little on the dorky side but generally tries to be a good guy.
We've also got Luke's jerkoff older brother, Brent, who gives off less charming Bruce Patman vibes, Megan's mom Debbie who seems to have a good heart but no financial sense even though she works for Luke's father, Steve.
Somewhere during the holiday 99 timeline, someone goes missing.
Last chance for spoilers.
O
k
a
y
F
o
r
r
e
a
l
...
Luke's body is found around the start of the Summer 2000 timeline and we spend the rest of the season trying to piece together what exactly happened NYE 1999. I hate that this show has decided that their visual shorthand for the time jump of the future is to give their main character terrible hair. Megan's got hers gelled/slicked back all the time and it turns out to be a nod to Trinity from The Matrix but like...it doesn't work because it just comes across as a greasy mullet. She's also got a terrible fake eyebrow piercing that apparently bothered everyone and I get it.
Not a huge fan of the filters to show the time differences either, but at least the winter blue did work for the winter. The gross green for the 2000 timeline was just headache inducing at times.
S2 did an interesting job of making you waffle between liking certain characters, or at least feeling bad for them, and absolutely wanting to throttle them.
Megan's probably the most innocent of the bunch, but for the number of times Isabella takes a bullet for her, Megan sure is quick to doubt her at every turn. Isabella does her best to bring Megan out of her shell, she breaks up with Luke (and you could tell she actually did seem to like him) the absolute moment Megan confirms that she really does have feelings for him, she nudges the two of them together, and at the start of the Holiday 99 storyline, she takes the fall for a sex tape that could destroy Megan's future. And throughout ALMOST all of this, Megan is constantly chosing Luke or letting things get in her head and it's just infuriating to watch for most of the season. Like sure, I know Isabella's got a past and is likely nutter butters in some way, but Summer 99 Isabella takes on a lot of shit.
Which is why it is so...baffling that the writers decided NOPE. We're not just gonna have her be very ride or die to the point that you spend the season wondering if she took that literally, we're also going to have her actively pick at this relationship she worked so hard to set in motion. It would've made sense had they not shown that Isabella/Megan/Luke worked as a friendship trio really, really well. So why the fuck is Isabella the one trying to unravel it? (Spoiler: because she's crazy and the writers apparently kept changing shit around.)
Then there's Luke. Luke manages to seem kind of adorkably delightful at times and at other times, well, I wasn't all that sad he was dead. For a good stretch of episodes, each new thing we learned about him made him such a giant douchebag, and having him seemingly lying about Isabella was the worst.
Until you realize he's not. She really is out here trying to break them up on an active level. I'm pretty sure it was meant to be because Isabella didn't want Megan to be tied down but like...the girl was getting out of town. Luke wanted to go into the Coast Guard. The odds of that working out without giving Isabella plenty of BFF time? Not great, even for an endgame pairing. And Isabella was shown to be calculating enough to be able to figure that out.
That brings us to another problem: Isabella and Luke sleep together right before Megan admits her feelings for Luke to Isabella. Megan and Luke get together and Megan assumes Luke's a virgin, too, and he's too scared to tell her the truth. So he gets Isabella to agree not to say anything, but they both have this ticking time bomb of mutual destruction between them.
So why in the FUCK would Isabella agree to anything that would possibly set that off with their little "truth serum" stunt? The thing about mutual destruction is that it's mutual DESTRUCTION.
Oi.
Luke's barbs towards/about Isabella are annoying, probably because they're lies while Isabella is just managing to out maneuver him.
But Episode 9 damn near redeems the kid and is the reason I genuinely cried a little during the finale. Episode 9 follows Luke for the last six months or so of his life, as he reflects on the man he's becoming and how he desperately doesn't like who he is. It's really well done as everything crashes down around him to the point that I wondered if maybe the twist this season was going to be that he killed himself. It wasn't, but that lead up was nearly perfect as far as these things go.
Biggest plot hole though is Ned, the weird Y2K prepper dude with the house next door to Luke's family cabin. He's got cameras EVERYWHERE. He's also PARANOID as hell. Why did no one check his cameras before the final stretch? Why didn't Megan once she got word his footage was on a network she was more than able to crack from home?
Did Ned know what happened and just didn't say shit because he didn't care? Wtf?
Also, kudos show for making me feel bad for Brent of all characters.
Okay, it's either read, sleep, or num time.
I also found Sig Toralei from the MH reboot a year after I stopped looking for her. I'm probably a little off on the timeline but I didn't expect to find her and I was so happy. Even when I realized her clearance price is the same as the normal price. Boo and bullfrogs indeed.
Did some decorating but I need to figure out what I'm doing with the bar. *muse* My brother bought me some decorations too. One is stupidly cute and the other two kind of match up nicely with two other sets I have:
The first is a mini blow mold black cat that lights up. The other two is a pair of DotD cat and dog. I have two smaller DotD cats and a pair of ghost cat/dog. So this kind of merges the two.
And because I wanted to catch up on some of my TV backlog, I finished S2 of Cruel Summer.
The obvious out of the way: Season 1 was better. I watched that one pretty much weekly, as it came out while I watched the first 3 episodes of S2 and then didn't watch anymore until yesterday. It ended on July 31st, btw so it's not like I didn't have time.
That being said, I enjoyed bits of S2. Large bits? I dunno, it's been eons since I watched S1 and I remember parts of it being very frustrating, so I'm trying not to compare them TOO much.
I will say, S2 didn't really work as well as a binge watching show because after awhile I just wanted to find someone who'd compiled all the various timelines into one straight line instead of having to bounce back and forth. It got worse each episode I went in until episode 9, which was a standalone and a standout.
If you're lost and have NO intention of watching S2, here's the short(er) version:
Anthology series that takes place over three timelines. S2 covers Summer 1999/Holiday 1999/Summer 2000. We follow:
- Rich foreign exchange student Isabella who has some mystery event from last winter in St. Barts and is very invested in making her friendship with Megan ironclad.
- Megan, our computer nerd who is poor and works to help her mother make ends meet, with a little sister who exists entirely to give Megan another person to rely on her Never Fucking Up. Megan is in love with her best friend Luke.
- Luke is the youngest son of a rich, important family in town. He's a little on the dorky side but generally tries to be a good guy.
We've also got Luke's jerkoff older brother, Brent, who gives off less charming Bruce Patman vibes, Megan's mom Debbie who seems to have a good heart but no financial sense even though she works for Luke's father, Steve.
Somewhere during the holiday 99 timeline, someone goes missing.
Last chance for spoilers.
O
k
a
y
F
o
r
r
e
a
l
...
Luke's body is found around the start of the Summer 2000 timeline and we spend the rest of the season trying to piece together what exactly happened NYE 1999. I hate that this show has decided that their visual shorthand for the time jump of the future is to give their main character terrible hair. Megan's got hers gelled/slicked back all the time and it turns out to be a nod to Trinity from The Matrix but like...it doesn't work because it just comes across as a greasy mullet. She's also got a terrible fake eyebrow piercing that apparently bothered everyone and I get it.
Not a huge fan of the filters to show the time differences either, but at least the winter blue did work for the winter. The gross green for the 2000 timeline was just headache inducing at times.
S2 did an interesting job of making you waffle between liking certain characters, or at least feeling bad for them, and absolutely wanting to throttle them.
Megan's probably the most innocent of the bunch, but for the number of times Isabella takes a bullet for her, Megan sure is quick to doubt her at every turn. Isabella does her best to bring Megan out of her shell, she breaks up with Luke (and you could tell she actually did seem to like him) the absolute moment Megan confirms that she really does have feelings for him, she nudges the two of them together, and at the start of the Holiday 99 storyline, she takes the fall for a sex tape that could destroy Megan's future. And throughout ALMOST all of this, Megan is constantly chosing Luke or letting things get in her head and it's just infuriating to watch for most of the season. Like sure, I know Isabella's got a past and is likely nutter butters in some way, but Summer 99 Isabella takes on a lot of shit.
Which is why it is so...baffling that the writers decided NOPE. We're not just gonna have her be very ride or die to the point that you spend the season wondering if she took that literally, we're also going to have her actively pick at this relationship she worked so hard to set in motion. It would've made sense had they not shown that Isabella/Megan/Luke worked as a friendship trio really, really well. So why the fuck is Isabella the one trying to unravel it? (Spoiler: because she's crazy and the writers apparently kept changing shit around.)
Then there's Luke. Luke manages to seem kind of adorkably delightful at times and at other times, well, I wasn't all that sad he was dead. For a good stretch of episodes, each new thing we learned about him made him such a giant douchebag, and having him seemingly lying about Isabella was the worst.
Until you realize he's not. She really is out here trying to break them up on an active level. I'm pretty sure it was meant to be because Isabella didn't want Megan to be tied down but like...the girl was getting out of town. Luke wanted to go into the Coast Guard. The odds of that working out without giving Isabella plenty of BFF time? Not great, even for an endgame pairing. And Isabella was shown to be calculating enough to be able to figure that out.
That brings us to another problem: Isabella and Luke sleep together right before Megan admits her feelings for Luke to Isabella. Megan and Luke get together and Megan assumes Luke's a virgin, too, and he's too scared to tell her the truth. So he gets Isabella to agree not to say anything, but they both have this ticking time bomb of mutual destruction between them.
So why in the FUCK would Isabella agree to anything that would possibly set that off with their little "truth serum" stunt? The thing about mutual destruction is that it's mutual DESTRUCTION.
Oi.
Luke's barbs towards/about Isabella are annoying, probably because they're lies while Isabella is just managing to out maneuver him.
But Episode 9 damn near redeems the kid and is the reason I genuinely cried a little during the finale. Episode 9 follows Luke for the last six months or so of his life, as he reflects on the man he's becoming and how he desperately doesn't like who he is. It's really well done as everything crashes down around him to the point that I wondered if maybe the twist this season was going to be that he killed himself. It wasn't, but that lead up was nearly perfect as far as these things go.
Biggest plot hole though is Ned, the weird Y2K prepper dude with the house next door to Luke's family cabin. He's got cameras EVERYWHERE. He's also PARANOID as hell. Why did no one check his cameras before the final stretch? Why didn't Megan once she got word his footage was on a network she was more than able to crack from home?
Did Ned know what happened and just didn't say shit because he didn't care? Wtf?
Also, kudos show for making me feel bad for Brent of all characters.
Okay, it's either read, sleep, or num time.