Reading/Watching Log #96

It’s been a busy month, filled with Christmas parades, Christmas ballets, Christmas markets and Christmas decorating (and it’s only just December now!) But I feel like I’m on top of it, especially concerning my Christmas shopping. Parents, sister and nephew are all accounted for regarding their gifts, and of course I bought my presents to myself ages ago (The Daughters of Ys illustrated by Jo Rioux and The Mabinogion illustrated by Alan Lee – yes!!)

Reading wise, there are more graphic novels, a very strange Babysitters Club book, and some Slavic fantasies (I’m finally getting to the end of that massive TBR pile). Watching wise, there was a more eclectic mix, including my sister’s favourite movie, some leftover werewolf films, the end of Disenchanted (and my Netflix subscription) and a return to season four of Doctor Who to catch up on Donna Noble’s history before getting to this year’s Christmas Specials.

I have also been sporadically watching episodes of the BBC’s Robin Hood with my friend, though I’m still working on a much longer review for the show as a whole, so there are no comments on it here.

Legend of the Seeker: Bound

It’s taken me this long to notice that Legend of the Seeker doesn’t have any opening credits, just a quick montage of the main characters set to Zed’s voiceover (and the clip they chose for Cara is just awful). Does anyone else miss the art of the opening credits? With a tableau of clips and cast credits played to a proper theme song that set the tone? Nobody does that anymore.

In any case, this episode starts with the Sisters of the Dark standing in their trademark circle and engaging in a little chanting. They do that a lot, though it never seems to do them much good. A mutiny against Nicci is a-brewing (even though they brought her back from the dead only last week) as well as some backstabbing when the ringleaders enhance their own power (or Han) by stealing energy from others as part of a predetermined plan.

Now they have the strength to take on Nicci, though – still in possession of Richard’s Han – she disappears before they can kill her with their increased odds, and clocks in some facetime with Rahl through a campfire to get advice on what to do next. To redeem herself, she must find the Stone of Tears (I’ve totally forgotten what this does by now) and bring it to the Keeper, though she points out the compass that leads to it only works in the hands of the Seeker.

Therefore, she must find a way to control the Seeker. The exposition is a little clunky, but it neatly lays out Nicci’s objectives for this episode: control the Seeker, find the Stone, and kill the Mother Confessor (as you’ll recall, there’s a prophecy that states the Keeper is doomed to fail while Kahlan’s “pure heart” still beats). And that’s this week’s set-up!

Links and Updates

My ongoing topic of interest (and outrage) at the moment is the dramatic culling of television shows by studios and streaming services, with dozens upon dozens of projects being canned long before their stories are completed. I’ve touched upon this before in other posts, but as the death toll continues to rise, I find myself more curious as to what exactly is going on. Why does this keep happening? (I mean, besides capitalism screwing us all over).

Legend of the Seeker: Princess

I’ve known this one has been coming up for a while (and been looking forward to it) because there are so many GIF-sets out there depicting Cara in her fancy regalia. I’m under the impression that this is a fan-favourite episode as well, though – like the last episode – it has some odd tonal shifts, with the resurrection of Nicci and the threat she poses set alongside some whacky hijinks at the court of a lecherous margrave.

And as is the way in serialized television, there’s no mention or worry about the Banelings in this episode, even though the zombie apocalypse should be in full-swing by now.

But hey, two Cara episodes in a row! That’s compensation for keeping her on the fringes for so long.

Legend of the Seeker: Hunger

Welcome to the most tonally dissonant episode of the season thus far! It’s also something of a minor Continuity Cavalcade, what with two prior guest stars returning from separate episodes in season one: Ted Raimi as Sebastian and Jon Brazier as Thaddicus. You know, Zed’s brother? It’s okay if you don’t, as I kinda forgot about this guy too, and initially wasn’t even sure if they’d brought back the same actor (they did). Given the content of this episode, I half expected the con-artists from “Mirror” to return as well.

And remember the Banelings? How they were introduced as a pretty big deal in the first handful of episodes? They’re back too, and the horror of what’s required of them to maintain their existence sits extremely uncomfortably next to the hijinks of Sebastian and Thaddicus, two greedy rascals who deliberately water down a cure for the undead so they can make more money. A fair portion of this is played for laughs, and they’ve gone right back to selling snake oil in the final scene. Hah... hah?  

And that’s not even touching on what Cara goes through in this episode. Holy tonal shifts, Batman!

Woman of the Month: Sam and Tara Carpenter

Sam and Tara Carpenter from Scream 5 and 6

I’m doubling back and editing this post to finally bring you November’s Women of the Month (plural).

For the first time since starting these posts in August 2014, I was completely without inspiration. I couldn’t think of a single female character to showcase. The ground rules I set for myself meant I could only feature one woman per film/book/story, and that she had to be heroic (or at least not overtly villainous) in nature – but given that most of my reading and viewing this year has been continuation of stories rather than new material, the well had simply run dry.

And then last week, I watched Scream 6. It was a lot of fun, and held up surprisingly well given the absence of both Neve Campbell and David Arquette, largely due to the baton of main character being passed to sisters Sam and Tara Carpenter. For my money, I think they fill Sydney Prescott’s shoes pretty well – though of course, there’s no replacing the original Final Girl.

Once the credits rolled, I filed the Carpenter sisters away in my mind, expecting to one day write about them at some point (maybe in an end of year retrospective) but not before their shared story reached what would have presumably been its conclusion in the inevitable Scream 7. Despite moving past their differences and teaming up to take down their would-be killers, the ending definitely left room for more growth – especially given the fierce, almost deranged glee they demonstrate when turning the tables on the Ghostface killers.

Except... now there won’t be. Just yesterday news broke that Melissa Barrera had been fired from the franchise after speaking out against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. This morning, Jenna Ortega also announced she wouldn’t be returning for Scream 7, and although the official word is she wanted a release from her contract so she could film season two of Wednesday, that this announcement came so quickly on the heels of Barrera’s firing is pretty transparently not a coincidence.

So that’s it for the Carpenter sisters. It’s disappointing, and a terrible look for Spyglass/Paramount studios who have lost their first leading lady by not offering her a decent pay-check, fired their second one for speaking out against genocide, and then promptly losing their popular young starlet a day later. Where on earth does the franchise go from here?

And yet given the way Scream 6 ends... it works as a conclusion to Sam and Tara’s development and relationship with each other. The two of them were first introduced in Scream 5, with Tara in the franchise’s traditional role of victim in the cold open: the young girl who gets a phone call while she’s alone in her house at night, which quickly escalates into a full-blown attack by the Ghostface killer.

The twist on expectations is that Tara survives. The action then cuts to Sam, who we quickly learn is Tara’s estranged sister, living with her boyfriend and working retail in Modesto. She rushes to her sister’s hospital bed in Woodsboro, where the two of them quickly realize they’re in the eye of the storm when it comes to the township’s latest killing spree. In a somewhat dodgy but still interesting reveal, it turns out that the reason for the sisters’ estrangement (and their parents’ divorce) is that Sam is the illegitimate daughter of Billy Loomis, one of the killers in the original Scream.

As such, the story is just as much about Sam coming to terms with this potential hereditary darkness within her as it is surviving the rampage of a serial killer, who is clearly very aware of this biological connection with the franchise’s first murderer. It’s a theme that continues in Scream 6, which gives time and space to exploring the natural consequences of surviving a mass murder: intense psychological trauma.

The sisters now live in New York, with Tara trying to live life to the fullest and Sam getting trapped inside a paranoid outlook in which anyone and everything could potentially be out to get them. And yes, their relationship is still very strained. But Sam’s overprotectiveness of Tara leads to the inevitable thematic outcome when she eventually trusts her to take care of herself (complete with an echo of her “you have to let me go” admonition), after which the girls call upon their own resourcefulness and strength to take down their assailants.

Like I said, there was room for more character exploration here, particularly in the way the sisters are clearly relishing the violence they inflict upon the Ghostface killers (which we are vicariously sharing in). As Sam feared, there is darkness not only in her, but Tara as well.

Yet in the final scene, Sam casts away her father’s mask and joins her sister and her friends as the sun rises. The Carpenter sisters get to walk away together, having come to terms with their history and their relationship. Like Sydney before them, I hope they enjoy their happy ending – and that the actresses are able to move on to better, more worthy projects.  

(And hey, a character played by Jenna Ortega gets to be Woman of the Month two months in a row!)

Reading/Watching Log #95

It’s the spooky season and along with a glut of scary stories, I decided to apply an EIGHTIES WEREWOLVES THEME to this October. I don’t know what was in the water during that decade, but films in the eighties were rather obsessed with that subject. In 1981 alone, there were no less than three werewolf films.

I’m a big fan of themed viewing/reading, though it often bites me in the ass when I end up getting tired of whatever subject I’ve decided to focus on. And as it happens, werewolf movies can be strikingly similar in the major narrative beats they hit, and they’re often a metaphor for an individual losing their inhibitions.

There are some plot-points that reappear in nearly every film: the fateful bite or wolf attack, a gradual heightening of senses in the recipient of the bite, a few brutal killings, the horrific (and prolonged) transformation sequence, and an opportunity to either reject or embrace the curse.

But in almost every case, turning into a werewolf grants a character a level of freedom and confidence they’ve never experienced before, from the light-hearted Teen Wolf (Michael J. Fox suddenly gets popular) to the much darker Wolf (Jack Nicolson gains stamina, ruthlessness, and the inexplicable ability to be attractive to Michelle Pfieffer).

But of course, there’s always a price; a reason that werewolfry is referred to as “a curse.” Many of the transformations are painful and grotesque to behold – particularly in The Howling, The Company of Wolves and An American Werewolf in London, and actually being a wolf leads one to massacring innocent people before waking up naked in a strange place with no memory of what you were up to the night before. In such cases any transformation will be framed as a tragedy, in which the protagonist’s identity is at risk of being lost to the wolf persona.

Yet although the protagonist is usually desperate to stop the transformation in order to save lives (Brigette in Ginger Snaps: Unleashed, Karen in The Howling), they can just as often find a new lease on life with their new condition (Wolf, The Company of Wolves, Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning). On that note, sometimes becoming a werewolf is an extended metaphor for puberty. Scott’s hair-growth and sex drive in Teen Wolf is a very blatant example of this, but The Company of Wolves is filled with symbols and motifs that signify Rosaleen’s sexual awakening through an overtly feminine lens.

But if the film’s protagonist is not the werewolf and instead the character trying to hunt the werewolf (as The Howling, Silver Bullet and Wolfen) then any wolf will be portrayed as terrifyingly animalistic and brutal; creatures which simply must be stopped by any means necessary.

And interestingly enough, the idea of a silver bullet being the only thing that can kill a werewolf is seldom used. In fact, Silver Bullet (obviously) is the only film that has this be the case. In everything else, normal bullets will suffice.

In any case, this pelthora of werewolf films were interesting to view in quick succession, though I simply don’t have the time to delve deeper into the implications and meaning of the werewolf as a symbol. Mostly it was just fun to revisit the eighties, as the multitude of shows/films that are made today in tribute to that decade don’t really compare to anything actually made in that decade.

I suspect that the surprising amount of werewolf stories made around this time was due to the advances in practical effects that made the transformations so intense and visceral. These days, you’d just run it all through a computer.