Actively Questioning the Nature of My Reality: What I Liked This Week #7
And by reality, I do mean favorite TV shows.
Happy Friday!! I said I was going to write these more frequently and I am sticking to it! Mostly, because it allows me to avoid applying to jobs and writing creatively, but also because I really did have lots that I liked this week! Not as many jokes, but lots of quality recommendations. Enjoy!
Television: A League of Their Own, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, Westworld
Some people’s love language is words of affirmation, for others, its gift giving. My new thing is saying ‘okay, I’ll watch that for you!’ I read Dune for a friend so I could then watch the movie for the same friend and supposedly ‘have a greater appreciation of it’. This week, I binged all of A League of Their Own in two days so that I could talk about it with friends. Based on the movie of the same name, this is a show which asks, what if… baseball players could be women, and what if…some of them fell in love?
Much like the Geena Davis/Tom Hanks movie, A League of Their Own follows the inception of an all-women’s baseball league during World War II. However, after the first episode, the show takes its own direction, following Carson (creator Abbi Jacobson) as she joins the Rockford Peaches, (which fun fact I just learned! was a real team!) and falls in love with the team’s slugger, Greta (D’Arcy Carden). I really enjoyed seeing Carson and Greta’s romance develop over the course of the season, as well as their relationships with their teammates! **Side Note: While Carden’s performance was objectively good, the only other show I’ve seen her in is The Good Place, and it was genuinely me impossible to seperate Greta from Janet - aka whole time I assumed that she never had a single thought behind her eyes.** Anyway! Carson and the Peaches’ story is interwoven with that of Max (Chante Adams), a talented young pitcher who is not allowed to play because she is a Black woman and it is the 40s and baseball is not only sexist but racist too. The show went in some really interesting directions with Max’s story, and she and her best friend Clance (Gbemisola Ikumelo, also one of the show’s writers) were truly my favorite part of the show. Overall, this was a really well crafted ensemble piece, and I was rooting for Max and the Peaches the whole time! If J*ff B*zos knows what is good for him he WILL renew it.
Now…for some very poorly crafted ensemble shows that I watched for ME . High School Musical: The Musical: The Series…what happened…to the original plot…of the movie!! GOD this show is not good, and I love it anyway. Season 3 of HSMTMTS (1) is not set at the high school, but instead at summer camp? and (2) features our favorite gang of wildcats performing Frozen instead of a HSM musical. Frozen? Why! While not much happened this season, I enjoyed my favorite little musical theater dorks dancing around the woods, even if the plot was overcomplicated and half the cast was missing for unknown reasons. What did this season accomplish? Well, it successfully (read: kinda clumsily) wrote Olivia Rodrigo off the show, so she’s free to Go Her Own Way and continue the SOUR tour, let my faves Gina and Kourtney have their moments in the spotlight, and caused me to realize that a certain Joshua Basset is maybe…not a good actor. This is okay though because he can sing well and also it fits his typecast of musical theater boy who doesn’t have to try very hard to get cast as the lead. They just announced season 4 at D23 last weekend and I look forward to the plot making even less sense! Tim Federele stays an incomprehensible show runner! King!
Speaking of shows that make no sense, let us spend a moment with Westworld season 4. Many many many spoilers ahead. You also can skip this paragraph if you don’t care about this show and don’t like reading about gratuitous violence! I could not follow a SINGLE PART of this show? So like…Tessa (Thompson, her character changes every season, so we just call her Tessa) like figured out how to control the humans using nasty little bugs? and murdered Cal? But then brought him back as a poorly built robot? Meanwhile Bernard spent 20 years with his brain uploaded to robot heaven and became omniscient, just to realize that there was no way to save the day? But despite this, he revived a recently murdered Maeve and asked her to help him, instead of reuniting her with her daughter in roboheaven?
And! While all that was happening, Dolores was turned into a super computer and reunited with her DILF king James Marsden. Are you following this, because I am not!!!! And if you’re wondering how the season finale went, it ended with me GASPING out load every 2 minutes as every single character got SHOT IN THE FORHEAD, stabbed, or blown up. Was it traumatic? Yes! …Did I look forward to every single one of Alessandra and I’s cute little watch parties where we repeatedly said the exact same thing at the exact same moment? Also yes! Both can be true and that’s just the duality of man :)
Theater: As You Like It
Nothing says end of summer like Shakespeare in the Park. I love seeing outdoor Shakespeare, and that remains true even when the production is bad! It is about the vibes, about sticky summer air and a bag of popcorn and a full moon above us, more than the quality of the show. Overall, I would describe the Public Theater’s production of As You Like It as cute. We walked out of it and were like. huh! That was charming! You’ve charmed me! A musical adaptation of the Shakespeare comedy, Shaina Taub’s As You Like It follows Rosalind (Naomi Rebecca Jones, best known for Sexy Oklahoma™️) as she is banished to the woods, disguises herself as a man, and teaches the naive, also banished Orlando (Ato Blankson Wood) about love. Its a timely story of boy 1 meets girl, girl disguises herself as boy 2, boy 1 has feelings for boy 2, boy 2 reveals she is the girl, boy and girl get married. (Mulan lowkey did it better). Jones and Wood but give standout performances, Taub’s score offering them the chance to really show off vocally. However, while the music is creative and the voices are good, Taub’s lyrics are lacking. I respect her choice to simplify Shakespeare’s language and make it more accessible for a broader audience, but some of the lines are almost comical in how plain and matter of fact they are.
Mediocre lyrics aside, this As You Like It was still able to almost bring me to tears. Vulnerable moment! The show was put on as this year’s Public Works Project, meaning that the performers included a massive ensemble of 70 community members, from children to local firefighters. Getting to see all of these (for want of better word) regular people just having the time of their lives onstage geuinely made me emotional! All I want is quality productions that are accessible to everyone, and a show that both has entirely free tickets AND gives non-actors a change to perform with Tony Nominees is always something to be celebrated.
Books: Felix Ever After, Daughter of the Deep, The Final Gambit
I’ve been doing a lot of rereading recently, but there have been a few new books that I’ve enjoyed! In the spirit of honesty, I should note that they have all been YA, but I’d still recommend them for anyone looking for a quick and fun read!
A Stonewall Award winning book by Kacen Callendar, Felix Ever After follows a young Black artist who is still figuring out his trans identity. The book has a lot of heart and offers a really beautiful portrayal of queer youth, as well as the first time I have seen a demiboy character in a book, which is neat! I liked all the characters in this book, but will say that I think I might be growing tired of high school coming of age stories - like with shows like Never Have I Ever or The Summer I Turned Pretty, I just find a lot of the romantic plotlines very contrived and a little cringy. I still like YA but I’m not sure that this specific genre is hitting like it should.
Now saying that all these books were YA was. uh. a generalization…because Daughter of the Deep is ~technically~ a Middle Grade fiction lol. What can I say, I was about to board a plane and didn’t have a chance to download another book!! The first of a new series by Rick Riordan, Daughter of the Deep is the perfect book for every kid/adult who wants/wanted to be a marine biologist. Although the characters didn’t grip me the same way the Percy Jackson ones did (and still do) I was VERY into the setting. A robotic submarine crewed by 20 fourteen year olds and a dolphin? I mean COME ON! Love!!!
Finally, The Final Gambit by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. Barnes is geuinely one of my top 3 favorite mystery writers, and I partiularly love her Debutantes duology! This book is the final installment in the Inheritance Games trilogy, and while I did really enjoy this book, I have to say the first of the three is by far the best. Perfect for Knives Out or Clue fans, the series is filled with convuluted puzzles, a giant mysterious house, and a (for the first two books) gripping love triangle. Barnes poses the questions “What you do if a billionare you never met named you his sole heir? And what would you do with the money?” Her answers were not disappointing at ALL (even if lowkey the love triangle was! Sorry!! I love drama!) and ultimately, even if the third book wasn’t my favorite, it did an excellent job of getting me hyped for Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion.
Other: The Emmys, Queen Elizabeth
Jimmy Kimmel, you will pay for your crimes!!! Like what compells a grown man to lie on the floor while a Black woman recieves her FIRST EMMY? I don’t care if he was drunk, I don’t care if it was a bit, it was just icky and bizzare. That said! I loved seeing Quinta win for Abbot Elementary! I didn’t finish the first season cause it felt too applicable to my life as a preschool teacher, but it was very cute and I should give it a second chance. Also enjoyed seeing Zendaya win, Jennifer Coolidge do her little dance, and Jason Suedakis ensure the continuation of the DWDCU (Don’t Worry Darling Cinematic Universe).
RE the Queen…I love the way news travels in our modern era…my friend’s dad texts her that the queen is dead, she texts me…I tell my roommates, etc. all before I get a NYTimes alert, and that’s the digital age baby!! I hope that somewhere out there, the Derry Girls are celebrating.
That’s all for now, folks!
If u need me I will be rewatching the Percy Jackson trailer and applying to jobs!! In the immortal words of everyone’s favorite Beatle, “Peace and Love, Ringo Starr”.