Clay's tape...
13 Reasons Why
Episode 11: Tape 10, Side A
Ya girl's back, I took an extended break from the series because I knew this episode was next and I didn't want to see this character hurt and I didn't want to know of Hannah's reason for it even though I kind of already knew what it was. Either way, I avoided it because I wasn't looking forward to it but you can't keep running from your commitments.
Episode Plot: Clay finds out how "he killed Hannah" and...it's equal parts stupid and heartbreaking.
Opening credits: These are still some ugly, headache inducing opening credits. The music, however, does seem to fit with the tone of the show. The music is a little uncomfortable and the topics of suicide/teen suicide/blaming everyone around you for your choice to end your life are uncomfortable and in the case of this show, controversial. I stand by what I said in an earlier review that Th1rteen R3asons Why is still fuck ugly and shouldn't be a thing that they continue into the second series.
Go away: What did Clay do to Hannah to kill her then? He did as she asked. They were alone together, getting ready to do the do but then she gets flashbacks to everything that's happened to her before and she freaks out and gets upset. Fair enough, Clay asks her what's up and she just tells him to leave her alone and that she doesn't wanna see him. So he does as he's told, he respects her wishes and leaves her to it. How does Hannah manipulate the situation for her to be the victim? She says Quote: "But you walked out the door like I told you to. Why did you have to leave?" ...??????
Excuse me, honey, no man is psychic in fact a lot of them are idiots but half of the time I think that's down to us not explaining ourselves. If you wanted to be left alone but not then just ask him to sit with you for a bit, maybe he would have sat and calmed you down, told you he loved you maybe. This is such a problem with people, mostly girls but some guys do it too where they say one thing but mean another, there are memes about it and it's not a healthy thing to do. Do not expect anybody to read your mind when you say one thing but mean another. If you want someone to leave you alone but stay with you then say that and lay out the boundaries, if you're hungry and know what to eat don't say "I don't know" then shoot down every option you're given unless your option is given. Don't do that, what do you achieve in doing that? It seems pretty manipulative the more you think about it, doesn't it? You're controlling whoever you're doing this to and it makes them feel bad when you call them out on it when...you're the one being an ass. Just my opinion tho, if you wanna be that kind of person then you go for it, nothing I say is gonna stop you.
I love you: This episode made me cry, I won't deny it, I'm human. I cry at everything lately I mean...the other day I said I'd fight someone or something, Ben said no you're too soft so I was like nah, I'm not soft I'll fuckin fight and he said, out of his mouth, to my face "no, you're more like a liquid". Man, that set me right off, I was in tears from being called a fucking liquid. Point being, my boyfriend gave me the weakest insult and I cry over the smallest things.
The scene that made me cry in this episode wasn't a small thing, it was a scene in which Clay was thinking about how things could have gone differently, how he should have pressed Hannah for an answer to see if she was ok and what was up, how he should have told her he loved her, how she said "why couldn't you say that when I was alive" and...fuck man it's just heavy. Like it's heavy because if you've gone through any kind of loss, whether it be falling out with a friend, to ripping a plastic bag to death, you can spend a hell of a lot of time just dwelling on what you could have done differently, what you could have said differently to ensure things go down a different path. It's heartbreaking to just watch this scene, even worse to see Clay stand on the edge of a cliff wanting to jump off because he was too scared to tell Hannah he loved her and because he believes he was the one who killed her.
Texting the victim: Moving on from sadness we get some anger. Justin gets into an argument with his step-dad/mothers boyfriend and leaves, heads over to Bryce's house where he finds Jessica, a little drunk and playing cards with her rapist. In an attempt to upset Justin further she sits on Bryce's lap and Justin reacts by dragging her the hell out of there, she's like "go on, say it bitch, tell me what my drunk ass knows" and he does, he tells her Bryce raped her and she fucking slaps him. I understand that but like...shouldn't you have done that to Bryce too???? Then, later in the night, Jessica is crying on her bed, obviously trying to come to terms with what's happened and you know what happens? Fucking Bryce. Bryce has the balls to text her saying something like "hey you ok?" Like, no, that's gross and inappropriate and I hope you get what's coming to you butthead. Fuck off.
Those were the big points for this episode. It's a heavy one but an important one and it made me cry. Peace out, see you tomorrow.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on its platform.
Showing posts with label Series. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Series. Show all posts
Thursday, 29 June 2017
Thursday, 22 June 2017
13 Reasons Why - Episode 10
I'm so super extra mad about this.
13 Reasons Why
Episode 10: Tape 9, Side B
At the time of writing, it is 4:02 am and I have barely slept this whole week, however, through my sleep deprived enlightenment I have worked out the formula to this episode. This episode has a specific formula to it. It's filler, then a bombshell then rinse and repeat. It's not a good formula, it's not even an ok formula. The bombshells were kind of hit and miss and one of them was just plain horrible. Let's enjoy this...whatever the hell I type out about it.
Episode plot: It's Sheri's turn on the tapes, I think, the episode is more about Jeff (Brandon Larracuuente)'s death...I think. Honestly, I don't know what the hell happened to this one.
Murder...kinda: After witnessing Jessica get raped Hannah stays at the party and is kind of zoned out of reality, to the point where Sheri offers to take her home. Hannah accepts as long as Sheri isn't drunk and to prove that, Sheri does a cartwheel. Fair enough. Hannah says she can't go home drunk because she'll get lynched by her parents so Sheri says she can stay at her dad's with her. Hannah goes to either call or text her parents but sees her phone is dead so asks Sheri if she can use hers, Sheri says go for it and starts looking for her phone, takes her eyes off the wheel for a second and knocks a stop sign over. This is probably responsible for the car collision which kills Jeff.
Neither girl reports the incident at the time, mostly because Sheri is driving her father's car and is scared she fucked it up and wants to just get home whereas Hannah's guilt from not doing anything about Jessica's rape and feels a sudden urge to do the right thing here and when she does get a chance to call in the incident, someone has already beaten her to it. Of course, she thinks it's just about the stop sign but, big shock, Jeff is dead.
Bombshell No.1: So remember when I said that someone had beaten Hannah to calling in the incident? Of course you do, you read about it like 10 seconds ago. Turns out, it wasn't the stop sign being knocked over, it was the car accident which killed Jeff. This is nowhere near as impactful as it should have been and let me tell you why. Hannah is, at first, devastated and understandably so. She couldn't stop a rape and then she indirectly caused the death of one of her schoolmates, hell if I went through that I probably wouldn't be able to drag myself out of bed. She tearfully goes to Clay, I'm guessing to try and tell him what went down, and he just tells her outright that she has no right to be this upset because she hardly knew him and she always has to make it a melodrama about her.
I kind of see where he's coming from with this I mean, one of his close friends died and a girl who seems to make a drama out of everything comes up to him in tears. He's clearly feeling a fair amount of grief and doesn't need another drama on top of what he's going through so from his perspective at the time, it's understandable. He wants to deal with the death of his friend before having to deal with what he think's is petty melodrama from Hannah.
Who called it in?: Clay. Clay was the one who called in the death of his friend which is probably one of the most panic-filled moments of this kids entire life. He's seen death and he's known that person. That shit stays with you for a long time, and it makes Clay's reaction to Hannah approaching him a little more understandable.
Jeff's death: What I don't understand about this is that...I should care, even with my own experience with death, I should care that Clay found his close friend dead in such horrible circumstances. I don't. Why? Becuase there was only a basic connection established between the Jeff and Clay and there was also nothing that gave me any sort of connection to Jeff as a character. This guy's death literally felt like it was just shoved into the story just to serve Hannah and her journey to her death. This should have been a scene where you can feel something with Clay rather than for him and it just doesn't come across that way.
Bombshell No2.: Breaking news. Clay killed Hannah!!! Now let me tell you why I'm mad about this. If Clay did kill Hannah, why wouldn't she just make him one tape, just for him to tell what a scumbag he is? No. She made all of us waste our damn time on these tapes. Add to that, if she really wanted to be the ultimate sadist (which she has proven herself to be so far) wouldn't she have made him the very last tape? I dunno, fishy as hell.
Padding: This episode's biggest problem is that it's nothing especially important aside from the end, it's just padding, and nobody likes padding. I've heard that the series is based on a book where the events take place in just one day so transferring it to a series with 13 episodes is gonna need some padding but still, it's like they took all the padding from every episode in this series and the upcoming second series and just threw it into this episode. That might be an exaggeration but I don't care.
Fun story: It took me over a month to finish this and I genuinely thought I only had about one or two paragraphs written but I was farther than I thought. Thinking about it, this may not have been a "fun story" more, a stupid anecdote but I'm exhausted and slightly dehydrated and I don't wanna take a bath or shower because I'm a girl and love my showers/baths scalding hot. Don't feel like landing myself in a metaphorical hell rather than a real life one.
That's it folks, see you in the next one. Peace out and stay hydrated x
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on its platform.
13 Reasons Why
Episode 10: Tape 9, Side B
At the time of writing, it is 4:02 am and I have barely slept this whole week, however, through my sleep deprived enlightenment I have worked out the formula to this episode. This episode has a specific formula to it. It's filler, then a bombshell then rinse and repeat. It's not a good formula, it's not even an ok formula. The bombshells were kind of hit and miss and one of them was just plain horrible. Let's enjoy this...whatever the hell I type out about it.
Episode plot: It's Sheri's turn on the tapes, I think, the episode is more about Jeff (Brandon Larracuuente)'s death...I think. Honestly, I don't know what the hell happened to this one.
Murder...kinda: After witnessing Jessica get raped Hannah stays at the party and is kind of zoned out of reality, to the point where Sheri offers to take her home. Hannah accepts as long as Sheri isn't drunk and to prove that, Sheri does a cartwheel. Fair enough. Hannah says she can't go home drunk because she'll get lynched by her parents so Sheri says she can stay at her dad's with her. Hannah goes to either call or text her parents but sees her phone is dead so asks Sheri if she can use hers, Sheri says go for it and starts looking for her phone, takes her eyes off the wheel for a second and knocks a stop sign over. This is probably responsible for the car collision which kills Jeff.
Neither girl reports the incident at the time, mostly because Sheri is driving her father's car and is scared she fucked it up and wants to just get home whereas Hannah's guilt from not doing anything about Jessica's rape and feels a sudden urge to do the right thing here and when she does get a chance to call in the incident, someone has already beaten her to it. Of course, she thinks it's just about the stop sign but, big shock, Jeff is dead.
Bombshell No.1: So remember when I said that someone had beaten Hannah to calling in the incident? Of course you do, you read about it like 10 seconds ago. Turns out, it wasn't the stop sign being knocked over, it was the car accident which killed Jeff. This is nowhere near as impactful as it should have been and let me tell you why. Hannah is, at first, devastated and understandably so. She couldn't stop a rape and then she indirectly caused the death of one of her schoolmates, hell if I went through that I probably wouldn't be able to drag myself out of bed. She tearfully goes to Clay, I'm guessing to try and tell him what went down, and he just tells her outright that she has no right to be this upset because she hardly knew him and she always has to make it a melodrama about her.
I kind of see where he's coming from with this I mean, one of his close friends died and a girl who seems to make a drama out of everything comes up to him in tears. He's clearly feeling a fair amount of grief and doesn't need another drama on top of what he's going through so from his perspective at the time, it's understandable. He wants to deal with the death of his friend before having to deal with what he think's is petty melodrama from Hannah.
Who called it in?: Clay. Clay was the one who called in the death of his friend which is probably one of the most panic-filled moments of this kids entire life. He's seen death and he's known that person. That shit stays with you for a long time, and it makes Clay's reaction to Hannah approaching him a little more understandable.
Jeff's death: What I don't understand about this is that...I should care, even with my own experience with death, I should care that Clay found his close friend dead in such horrible circumstances. I don't. Why? Becuase there was only a basic connection established between the Jeff and Clay and there was also nothing that gave me any sort of connection to Jeff as a character. This guy's death literally felt like it was just shoved into the story just to serve Hannah and her journey to her death. This should have been a scene where you can feel something with Clay rather than for him and it just doesn't come across that way.
Bombshell No2.: Breaking news. Clay killed Hannah!!! Now let me tell you why I'm mad about this. If Clay did kill Hannah, why wouldn't she just make him one tape, just for him to tell what a scumbag he is? No. She made all of us waste our damn time on these tapes. Add to that, if she really wanted to be the ultimate sadist (which she has proven herself to be so far) wouldn't she have made him the very last tape? I dunno, fishy as hell.
Padding: This episode's biggest problem is that it's nothing especially important aside from the end, it's just padding, and nobody likes padding. I've heard that the series is based on a book where the events take place in just one day so transferring it to a series with 13 episodes is gonna need some padding but still, it's like they took all the padding from every episode in this series and the upcoming second series and just threw it into this episode. That might be an exaggeration but I don't care.
Fun story: It took me over a month to finish this and I genuinely thought I only had about one or two paragraphs written but I was farther than I thought. Thinking about it, this may not have been a "fun story" more, a stupid anecdote but I'm exhausted and slightly dehydrated and I don't wanna take a bath or shower because I'm a girl and love my showers/baths scalding hot. Don't feel like landing myself in a metaphorical hell rather than a real life one.
That's it folks, see you in the next one. Peace out and stay hydrated x
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on its platform.
Thursday, 15 June 2017
13 Reasons Why - Episode 8
Why did the last one bring on such anger and this one bring on such pain?
13 Reasons Why
Episode 8: Tape 4, Side B
Mate, I don't know where to start. I like that Clay had the balls to think of himself for once but he just backtracked on it so...what was the point?
Plot: Clay gave up the tapes to Tony who proceeds to take him climbing. Hannah joins a poetry club where there is a plate of cookies. Hannah is (obviously) ultimately, horrifically betrayed.
Clay: Remember when I said that someone should give him medical attention or at least a plaster to cover his head gash because I just know something will happen and he's gonna get hurt again? Well, surprise surprise I was right. I'm getting sick of that feeling, to be honest...As I was saying, Clay is climbing this cliff face (I think) with Tony at Tony's request without any protective gear aside from some rope that Tony brings with them. At one point, some stones come loose and hit Clay in the face, hitting both the huge open wound on his head and in the eye, almost causing him to fall from his height. Can this boy just have someone looking after him at all times? I want him to be safe, stop hurting him. For real this is the only character I'm really latching onto so far aside from Hannah's mother (Kate Walsh). Bless him and keep him safe.
Tony: Bless this boy too. He was almost directly linked to Hannah's death in the sense that he didn't have the energy to deal with another human being's problems (which is a very ok thing to do if you've got your own shit to deal with, your own health is more important), the tapes show up at his door and he runs over to Hannah's where she's already dead. This is obviously a heartbreaking thing to see and is something I actually wanted to see from this series. People actually dealing with the suicide of a girl they knew, not the vengeance of the dead girl.
Pre-recorded: How far in advance did Hannah record these tapes? She couldn't have done it within the few hours between Tony saying he can't hear her shit right now and the tapes showing up at his door? I don't think so, especially considering she recorded two sets of them. I mean...I don't know what to even say, this girl clearly planned this out, it wasn't a spur of the moment, this was a very thoroughly thought out plan.
The betrayal: Hannah joins a poetry club and makes friends with Ryan (Tommy Dorfman) who she asks to help her be a better writer. She writes a lovely poem which Ryan asks if he can publish it in the school paper. I think she says no but I'm not sure. Anyway, he publishes it anonymously and the school reads it and a few people make fun of it. Like high schoolers would do. A couple of people work out that she wrote it but they don't call her out on it. They just giggle a tiny bit but they don't really seem to care. This obviously means that Hannah gives up her passion for writing and brings her that little bit closer to suicide.
Gay: Big shock, Tony is gay. I don't necessarily care about that but what I do care about is Tony's attitude. He and Ryan were once a thing apparently, but you see, they weren't friends. Quote: "You think I would be friends with a guy like Ryan?" I feel like you'd have to at least like him a tiny bit if you're gonna put your dick in him. Then again I don't know what the hate fucking community is like with gay guys so I can't really comment on it.
Hannah: Hannah's a dick but she writes beautifully, she should have listened to her teacher when she said it was good, she got the whole school talking about her writing. I understand that she would have been upset over this, she pours her soul out into her writing and people are laughing. If she'd left it a couple months and looked back on it maybe she would have seen the good it did. There was no reason for her to call Ryan self-serving when he published this poem anonymously for her, to get her voice heard. It just sucks that she's so bitter.
Anyway, that's what I thought of that. Peace out guys.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on its platform.
13 Reasons Why
Episode 8: Tape 4, Side B
Mate, I don't know where to start. I like that Clay had the balls to think of himself for once but he just backtracked on it so...what was the point?
Plot: Clay gave up the tapes to Tony who proceeds to take him climbing. Hannah joins a poetry club where there is a plate of cookies. Hannah is (obviously) ultimately, horrifically betrayed.
Clay: Remember when I said that someone should give him medical attention or at least a plaster to cover his head gash because I just know something will happen and he's gonna get hurt again? Well, surprise surprise I was right. I'm getting sick of that feeling, to be honest...As I was saying, Clay is climbing this cliff face (I think) with Tony at Tony's request without any protective gear aside from some rope that Tony brings with them. At one point, some stones come loose and hit Clay in the face, hitting both the huge open wound on his head and in the eye, almost causing him to fall from his height. Can this boy just have someone looking after him at all times? I want him to be safe, stop hurting him. For real this is the only character I'm really latching onto so far aside from Hannah's mother (Kate Walsh). Bless him and keep him safe.
Tony: Bless this boy too. He was almost directly linked to Hannah's death in the sense that he didn't have the energy to deal with another human being's problems (which is a very ok thing to do if you've got your own shit to deal with, your own health is more important), the tapes show up at his door and he runs over to Hannah's where she's already dead. This is obviously a heartbreaking thing to see and is something I actually wanted to see from this series. People actually dealing with the suicide of a girl they knew, not the vengeance of the dead girl.
Pre-recorded: How far in advance did Hannah record these tapes? She couldn't have done it within the few hours between Tony saying he can't hear her shit right now and the tapes showing up at his door? I don't think so, especially considering she recorded two sets of them. I mean...I don't know what to even say, this girl clearly planned this out, it wasn't a spur of the moment, this was a very thoroughly thought out plan.
The betrayal: Hannah joins a poetry club and makes friends with Ryan (Tommy Dorfman) who she asks to help her be a better writer. She writes a lovely poem which Ryan asks if he can publish it in the school paper. I think she says no but I'm not sure. Anyway, he publishes it anonymously and the school reads it and a few people make fun of it. Like high schoolers would do. A couple of people work out that she wrote it but they don't call her out on it. They just giggle a tiny bit but they don't really seem to care. This obviously means that Hannah gives up her passion for writing and brings her that little bit closer to suicide.
Gay: Big shock, Tony is gay. I don't necessarily care about that but what I do care about is Tony's attitude. He and Ryan were once a thing apparently, but you see, they weren't friends. Quote: "You think I would be friends with a guy like Ryan?" I feel like you'd have to at least like him a tiny bit if you're gonna put your dick in him. Then again I don't know what the hate fucking community is like with gay guys so I can't really comment on it.
Hannah: Hannah's a dick but she writes beautifully, she should have listened to her teacher when she said it was good, she got the whole school talking about her writing. I understand that she would have been upset over this, she pours her soul out into her writing and people are laughing. If she'd left it a couple months and looked back on it maybe she would have seen the good it did. There was no reason for her to call Ryan self-serving when he published this poem anonymously for her, to get her voice heard. It just sucks that she's so bitter.
Anyway, that's what I thought of that. Peace out guys.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on its platform.
Wednesday, 24 May 2017
13 Reasons Why - Episode 9
CW: Talk of rape, if you don't like it please don't read this.
Who authorised this to be a tape?
13 Reasons Why
Episode 9: Tape 5, Side A
Christ, where do I even start with this one? How do I write an introductory paragraph to this? Shit, I can't, let's just get on with it.
Plot: Hannah watches as Jessica gets raped.
Rape: Just gonna get this part over and done with. It's Jessica's return to school party and she gets insanely wasted, to the point that she passes out while she and Justin are getting ready for some sexy time. Justin checks if she's awake, kisses her and leaves her on the bed. Good boy right? For now yes. He leaves the room to a drunken Bryce saying Quote: "what's mine is yours right?" (I'll be getting into that later). We then see the rape and Hannah frozen in shock and fear as she wants to do something but...can't. Jessica is in a state of denial of what happened to her after Justin tells her that the two hooked up and went to sleep and that Hannah's lying. Eventually, she remembers and is visibly shaken. Shaken probably isn't the right wording for that...words kind of escape me right now because I know as soon as I put one foot out of line with this, someone is gonna fucking slam me for it.
I do have questions about this though. How did Bryce get into the room if Justin was stood outside? Did Justin wave him in or did he just push past him? If so, why didn't Justin fight him on it? And why didn't he fight harder to keep Bryce off of Jessica? He's proven that he does care about her so...why didn't he fight harder to protect her? He could have caused a scene or gone downstairs and get his friends to fight Bryce, I dunno, just so much could have been done to stop this and nobody did anything to help this poor girl. What's worse is that because it had been so long, there is no way she could get any sort of justice or closure other than what she can find for herself. It would be hard as hell for her to do and maybe she wouldn't get the proper closure she needs and undoubtedly this is the sort of thing that will, at the very least, be in the back of her mind for years or even the rest of her life.
What's mine is yours: This is not the way you should speak, unless you're talking about your boyfriend's hoodies or if you're sharing food. Do not speak this way about each other's girlfriends. It's fucking appalling to hear this sort of language but I understand why it's important to show it so that if young people are watching this show, they can see that within this context this sort of behaviour is horrid and shouldn't be accepted. If you're seeing someone and your friend says "what's mine is yours" referring to sleeping with your partner, drop them as a friend, you do not need that sort of person in your life.
The actual tape: What the fuck does this have to do with Hannah's lead up to suicide? I don't mean to deviate from the issue but isn't that what this series is about? The thing's that lead up to Hannah taking her own life. Is it the guilt she's feeling from not doing anything? If so why didn't they show that? Why didn't they show the struggle she was having with this? Why didn't they show her try to talk to Jessica, to convince her to go to the police? I do understand the need to show this sort of thing but it just felt so out of nowhere considering this is about the events that lead to this girls death.
Also, why was this Justin's second tape? Why the hell wasn't it a Bryce tape? Bryce was the offender, Bryce was the rapist, Bryce deserved this tape. Not Justin.
Hannah: I...understand Hannah in this episode. Let me explain. When you're in a situation like that, where you are paralysed with fear there is nothing you can do to make yourself snap out of it, especially when the person you're supposed to take action against is a huge, athletic, muscular man, and you are a small woman with barely any physical traits that would enable you to come out on top in a fight. There's nothing you can do, adrenaline could probably fuel the fight and you might win if that's the case and at the very least, being at a crowded party you could cause a big enough scene to get whatever is happening stopped. But like I said, when you're paralysed with fear, you can't do shit.
I'm not saying that I agree with her actions, I'm saying I understand why she did what she did here.
Clay: To end on a slightly better note. Clay gets suspended for possession of pot. God, I swear this school is run by some sort of mini mafia it's almost funny. Marcus slips pot into Clay's bag and tells the school counsellor that he's worried about Clay, gets the police in and gets Clay's bag searched and gets him suspended in order to "send him a message". Honestly, if it wasn't so serious it'd be hilarious. I genuinely just can't deal with the kids at the school. What y'all trying to hide? What's the conspiracy?
Also, remember that gash on his head and remember when I said that the boy needs a plaster? Guess what? The boy got a plaster, hallelujah, holy shit. Seriously though, praise every higher being, this boy got a plaster. Words can't express how soothed I am by this, I'm just hoping he keeps his plaster on through the rest of the 4 episodes.
Anyway, that's it for today, I don't know what else to say really because...what else is there to say? I'm out, g'night guys.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on its platform.
Who authorised this to be a tape?
13 Reasons Why
Episode 9: Tape 5, Side A
Christ, where do I even start with this one? How do I write an introductory paragraph to this? Shit, I can't, let's just get on with it.
Plot: Hannah watches as Jessica gets raped.
Rape: Just gonna get this part over and done with. It's Jessica's return to school party and she gets insanely wasted, to the point that she passes out while she and Justin are getting ready for some sexy time. Justin checks if she's awake, kisses her and leaves her on the bed. Good boy right? For now yes. He leaves the room to a drunken Bryce saying Quote: "what's mine is yours right?" (I'll be getting into that later). We then see the rape and Hannah frozen in shock and fear as she wants to do something but...can't. Jessica is in a state of denial of what happened to her after Justin tells her that the two hooked up and went to sleep and that Hannah's lying. Eventually, she remembers and is visibly shaken. Shaken probably isn't the right wording for that...words kind of escape me right now because I know as soon as I put one foot out of line with this, someone is gonna fucking slam me for it.
I do have questions about this though. How did Bryce get into the room if Justin was stood outside? Did Justin wave him in or did he just push past him? If so, why didn't Justin fight him on it? And why didn't he fight harder to keep Bryce off of Jessica? He's proven that he does care about her so...why didn't he fight harder to protect her? He could have caused a scene or gone downstairs and get his friends to fight Bryce, I dunno, just so much could have been done to stop this and nobody did anything to help this poor girl. What's worse is that because it had been so long, there is no way she could get any sort of justice or closure other than what she can find for herself. It would be hard as hell for her to do and maybe she wouldn't get the proper closure she needs and undoubtedly this is the sort of thing that will, at the very least, be in the back of her mind for years or even the rest of her life.
What's mine is yours: This is not the way you should speak, unless you're talking about your boyfriend's hoodies or if you're sharing food. Do not speak this way about each other's girlfriends. It's fucking appalling to hear this sort of language but I understand why it's important to show it so that if young people are watching this show, they can see that within this context this sort of behaviour is horrid and shouldn't be accepted. If you're seeing someone and your friend says "what's mine is yours" referring to sleeping with your partner, drop them as a friend, you do not need that sort of person in your life.
The actual tape: What the fuck does this have to do with Hannah's lead up to suicide? I don't mean to deviate from the issue but isn't that what this series is about? The thing's that lead up to Hannah taking her own life. Is it the guilt she's feeling from not doing anything? If so why didn't they show that? Why didn't they show the struggle she was having with this? Why didn't they show her try to talk to Jessica, to convince her to go to the police? I do understand the need to show this sort of thing but it just felt so out of nowhere considering this is about the events that lead to this girls death.
Also, why was this Justin's second tape? Why the hell wasn't it a Bryce tape? Bryce was the offender, Bryce was the rapist, Bryce deserved this tape. Not Justin.
Hannah: I...understand Hannah in this episode. Let me explain. When you're in a situation like that, where you are paralysed with fear there is nothing you can do to make yourself snap out of it, especially when the person you're supposed to take action against is a huge, athletic, muscular man, and you are a small woman with barely any physical traits that would enable you to come out on top in a fight. There's nothing you can do, adrenaline could probably fuel the fight and you might win if that's the case and at the very least, being at a crowded party you could cause a big enough scene to get whatever is happening stopped. But like I said, when you're paralysed with fear, you can't do shit.
I'm not saying that I agree with her actions, I'm saying I understand why she did what she did here.
Clay: To end on a slightly better note. Clay gets suspended for possession of pot. God, I swear this school is run by some sort of mini mafia it's almost funny. Marcus slips pot into Clay's bag and tells the school counsellor that he's worried about Clay, gets the police in and gets Clay's bag searched and gets him suspended in order to "send him a message". Honestly, if it wasn't so serious it'd be hilarious. I genuinely just can't deal with the kids at the school. What y'all trying to hide? What's the conspiracy?
Also, remember that gash on his head and remember when I said that the boy needs a plaster? Guess what? The boy got a plaster, hallelujah, holy shit. Seriously though, praise every higher being, this boy got a plaster. Words can't express how soothed I am by this, I'm just hoping he keeps his plaster on through the rest of the 4 episodes.
Anyway, that's it for today, I don't know what else to say really because...what else is there to say? I'm out, g'night guys.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on its platform.
Wednesday, 17 May 2017
13 Reasons Why - Episode 7
I'm over halfway through and I'm very proud of myself that I'm managing it.
13 Reasons Why
Episode 7: Tape 4, Side A
What the fuck kind of episode did I just watch? I'll tell you what I just watched, I watched Hannah be petty and nasty, I watched Zach try to be nice and then dish out some truth, I watched Clay just kind of fucking give up on everything because he doesn't know what the hell to think anymore. He knows he can't trust Hannah's words, and he's just so insanely pissed at everything. Fuck. I'm so mad at this episode.
Plot: For this one, I'm just gonna quote the Netflix summary
"Another student sabotages Hannah during a class project. Clay's nightmares about Hannah spill over into the daytime."
Why is the plot bullshit? I'll tell you why. Because nobody sabotaged Hannah. Zach sat with her and tried to cheer her up after what happened with Marcus. He didn't have to, he could have just left and bitched about her but he didn't, he was nice enough to sit with her and try to stick a damn spoon to his nose. He then sits with her at lunch the next day and tells her he likes her. He leaves cute little bunnies in her compliment bag in class. He drew hella cute bunnies for this girl, that's cute as fuck and why would anyone do that just to get some ass?! He keeps the letter she writes him. How the heck is ANY of this "sabotage"???? Fuck off Hannah Baker, there was no need to be so damn rude about this.
The conversation: Here, I'm gonna give you a rundown of the conversation in which Zach tells Hannah he likes her. Word for word how it's said in the episode.
Zach: This isn't about Marcus, I never got the chance to say something. The thing is, you were the valentine I was hoping for.
Hannah: What?
Zach: I was hoping that I got your name on my y'know, valentine list thing.
Hannah: Because I'm easy?
Zach: No, seriously no, look the whole night with Marcus and everything, I couldn't believe you were on his list and not mine.
Hannah: Zach, I don't know if you're doing this on a dare or whatever -
Zach: It's not a dare, it's not, I just...I know you think every guy likes you 'cause you've got this great ass, but I like you for so much more than that
Hannah: Oh my God you're such an idiot
Zach: What? What'd I say?
Hannah: The fact that you don't even know...
Zach: I meant it as a compliment
Hannah: Zach, walk away.
What exactly did he say? He said he thinks she's more than a great ass clearly insinuating that he thinks she's funny or smart or lovely or all of the above or more. How the hell is that misconstrued as an insult? I mean I see where her distrust comes from but fuck sake Hannah, the guy even apologised and you couldn't care less, he then spits truth at you that you bring some of your shit onto yourself and you give him a fucking tape?! God sake.
Popularity = not lonely: You said it yourself, Hannah, you don't know what somebody else's life is like so why the hell do you think that Zach doesn't know what it's like to be lonely? Who the hell are you to even be making assumptions on someone else's life and whether they're lonely or not? Maybe, just maybe, you should have talked to him about this sort of thing so that maybe you could have been friends and maybe, even more when you see that he isn't a piece of shit like the guys you seem to go for in this school.
Popular people don't always have the best life. Popular people can be depressed, they can be lonely, they can be sad, stressed, anxious etc. Just because they are popular does not mean they aren't human and immune to human emotion. It may seem as though they have their life put together but people with these issues are amazing at hiding them in order to fit in.
The lies: Hannah Baker is a liar, confirmed. She says on the tape that she wrote Zach a letter, pouring her heart out and telling him things that she never told anyone before. She goes on to say that Zach balled the letter up and dumped it on the school floor to which she then balls him out in the corridor in front of everyone. Turns out, she's a liar. Because Zach didn't ball the letter up and throw it to the ground, he kept it. He shows Clay the letter and asks him if he wants to read it. Clay declines the offer but he now knows that he can't trust everything Hannah says.
Clay: Bless this boy. Bless him. He is going through so damn much with these tapes that's he's getting hallucinations of Hannah bleeding out on the basketball court, he constantly mishears what people around him are saying, thinking they're blaming him for Hannah's death. This poor boy is losing his grip on reality. I'm glad he gives the tapes back to Tony but he still kinda just loses his shit when he kicks off about the school to the new foreign exchange students. Can this guy please get some sort of therapy? He needs it, I need it for him, we all need him to get the help he needs. To deal with Hannah's death and to come to terms with whatever feelings of guilt he has over her death and get on with his life. After watching this episode I'm so worried about the state of this boy's mental health and I can see him in a spot next to Hannah by the end of the series.
Hannah: Fuck her. I don't know why she made this tape. She's genuinely just playing the victim. At least here she is trying to seek out help by putting an anonymous note in the class discussion bag which I can support her doing. Asking for help is a scary thing, especially when it comes to your own mental health. You think that you're bothering people and that you can handle it, reaching out is the hardest thing and I'm glad she did it. Good on her. Shame she was a dickhead the rest of the episode. She thinks she doesn't have friends anymore and I swear she must have forgotten that Clay was in her life and that so far he hasn't done anything to her so far. No friends my butthole.
Failure: Like I said, Hannah reached out and asked for help, fair enough. Obviously, she didn't get any help because...she's dead. The thing is, Clay asks Mrs Bradley (Keiko Agena) whether she thought it was important to help Hannah Baker she says of course it was. Thing is, she could have helped her. She could have looked at the note and compared the handwriting, found the people with similar handwriting and called them to see her separately so it would be just the two of them and then maybe Hannah would admit it was her and that she needs help and maybe she'd still be about and we wouldn't have to suffer through this bullshit episode.
Special death: There is a scene towards the beginning where Clay's parents are talking about him dealing with Hannah's death. His father says something along the lines of "a girl died and he didn't know her" I don't know I didn't write it down. His mother then says Quote: "Hannah Baker didn't just die she slit her wrists and bled out in a bathtub"
Does that mean her death was special because she brought it on herself? Death is death regardless of how it comes to a person. It's a heartbreaking thing, especially when it comes too soon and definitely as a result of suicide. The fact that Hannah slit her wrists and bled out doesn't mean she didn't die, it doesn't mean her death was special. They're acting like it's an M&S food porn ad. It's not just a death, it's a Hannah Baker death. What the fuck?
This episode just touched all the wrong nerves and I feel like it's highlighted the worst of the series so far. It's made Hannah out to be a victim when people are being nice to her, it treats her as some sort of tragic figure with the way people talk about her death. It's putting Clay through some severe emotional pain that's affecting his daily life in the worst way. I'm vexed and I'm out to make another brew and put myself through more pain. Peace guys.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on its platform.
13 Reasons Why
Episode 7: Tape 4, Side A
What the fuck kind of episode did I just watch? I'll tell you what I just watched, I watched Hannah be petty and nasty, I watched Zach try to be nice and then dish out some truth, I watched Clay just kind of fucking give up on everything because he doesn't know what the hell to think anymore. He knows he can't trust Hannah's words, and he's just so insanely pissed at everything. Fuck. I'm so mad at this episode.
Plot: For this one, I'm just gonna quote the Netflix summary
"Another student sabotages Hannah during a class project. Clay's nightmares about Hannah spill over into the daytime."
Why is the plot bullshit? I'll tell you why. Because nobody sabotaged Hannah. Zach sat with her and tried to cheer her up after what happened with Marcus. He didn't have to, he could have just left and bitched about her but he didn't, he was nice enough to sit with her and try to stick a damn spoon to his nose. He then sits with her at lunch the next day and tells her he likes her. He leaves cute little bunnies in her compliment bag in class. He drew hella cute bunnies for this girl, that's cute as fuck and why would anyone do that just to get some ass?! He keeps the letter she writes him. How the heck is ANY of this "sabotage"???? Fuck off Hannah Baker, there was no need to be so damn rude about this.
The conversation: Here, I'm gonna give you a rundown of the conversation in which Zach tells Hannah he likes her. Word for word how it's said in the episode.
Zach: This isn't about Marcus, I never got the chance to say something. The thing is, you were the valentine I was hoping for.
Hannah: What?
Zach: I was hoping that I got your name on my y'know, valentine list thing.
Hannah: Because I'm easy?
Zach: No, seriously no, look the whole night with Marcus and everything, I couldn't believe you were on his list and not mine.
Hannah: Zach, I don't know if you're doing this on a dare or whatever -
Zach: It's not a dare, it's not, I just...I know you think every guy likes you 'cause you've got this great ass, but I like you for so much more than that
Hannah: Oh my God you're such an idiot
Zach: What? What'd I say?
Hannah: The fact that you don't even know...
Zach: I meant it as a compliment
Hannah: Zach, walk away.
What exactly did he say? He said he thinks she's more than a great ass clearly insinuating that he thinks she's funny or smart or lovely or all of the above or more. How the hell is that misconstrued as an insult? I mean I see where her distrust comes from but fuck sake Hannah, the guy even apologised and you couldn't care less, he then spits truth at you that you bring some of your shit onto yourself and you give him a fucking tape?! God sake.
Popularity = not lonely: You said it yourself, Hannah, you don't know what somebody else's life is like so why the hell do you think that Zach doesn't know what it's like to be lonely? Who the hell are you to even be making assumptions on someone else's life and whether they're lonely or not? Maybe, just maybe, you should have talked to him about this sort of thing so that maybe you could have been friends and maybe, even more when you see that he isn't a piece of shit like the guys you seem to go for in this school.
Popular people don't always have the best life. Popular people can be depressed, they can be lonely, they can be sad, stressed, anxious etc. Just because they are popular does not mean they aren't human and immune to human emotion. It may seem as though they have their life put together but people with these issues are amazing at hiding them in order to fit in.
The lies: Hannah Baker is a liar, confirmed. She says on the tape that she wrote Zach a letter, pouring her heart out and telling him things that she never told anyone before. She goes on to say that Zach balled the letter up and dumped it on the school floor to which she then balls him out in the corridor in front of everyone. Turns out, she's a liar. Because Zach didn't ball the letter up and throw it to the ground, he kept it. He shows Clay the letter and asks him if he wants to read it. Clay declines the offer but he now knows that he can't trust everything Hannah says.
Clay: Bless this boy. Bless him. He is going through so damn much with these tapes that's he's getting hallucinations of Hannah bleeding out on the basketball court, he constantly mishears what people around him are saying, thinking they're blaming him for Hannah's death. This poor boy is losing his grip on reality. I'm glad he gives the tapes back to Tony but he still kinda just loses his shit when he kicks off about the school to the new foreign exchange students. Can this guy please get some sort of therapy? He needs it, I need it for him, we all need him to get the help he needs. To deal with Hannah's death and to come to terms with whatever feelings of guilt he has over her death and get on with his life. After watching this episode I'm so worried about the state of this boy's mental health and I can see him in a spot next to Hannah by the end of the series.
Hannah: Fuck her. I don't know why she made this tape. She's genuinely just playing the victim. At least here she is trying to seek out help by putting an anonymous note in the class discussion bag which I can support her doing. Asking for help is a scary thing, especially when it comes to your own mental health. You think that you're bothering people and that you can handle it, reaching out is the hardest thing and I'm glad she did it. Good on her. Shame she was a dickhead the rest of the episode. She thinks she doesn't have friends anymore and I swear she must have forgotten that Clay was in her life and that so far he hasn't done anything to her so far. No friends my butthole.
Failure: Like I said, Hannah reached out and asked for help, fair enough. Obviously, she didn't get any help because...she's dead. The thing is, Clay asks Mrs Bradley (Keiko Agena) whether she thought it was important to help Hannah Baker she says of course it was. Thing is, she could have helped her. She could have looked at the note and compared the handwriting, found the people with similar handwriting and called them to see her separately so it would be just the two of them and then maybe Hannah would admit it was her and that she needs help and maybe she'd still be about and we wouldn't have to suffer through this bullshit episode.
Special death: There is a scene towards the beginning where Clay's parents are talking about him dealing with Hannah's death. His father says something along the lines of "a girl died and he didn't know her" I don't know I didn't write it down. His mother then says Quote: "Hannah Baker didn't just die she slit her wrists and bled out in a bathtub"
Does that mean her death was special because she brought it on herself? Death is death regardless of how it comes to a person. It's a heartbreaking thing, especially when it comes too soon and definitely as a result of suicide. The fact that Hannah slit her wrists and bled out doesn't mean she didn't die, it doesn't mean her death was special. They're acting like it's an M&S food porn ad. It's not just a death, it's a Hannah Baker death. What the fuck?
This episode just touched all the wrong nerves and I feel like it's highlighted the worst of the series so far. It's made Hannah out to be a victim when people are being nice to her, it treats her as some sort of tragic figure with the way people talk about her death. It's putting Clay through some severe emotional pain that's affecting his daily life in the worst way. I'm vexed and I'm out to make another brew and put myself through more pain. Peace guys.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on its platform.
Friday, 12 May 2017
13 Reasons Why - Episode 6
I got it, I finally got it, Dylan Minnette is from that Don't Breathe film. 6 Episodes in and I finally worked out why he looked so damn familiar.
13 Reasons Why
Episode 6: Tape 3 Side B
This show is exhausting to watch. Or at least it is for me, I just have no motivation to want to finish this series and good God am I ready for this to just end. At least this one gave me something somewhat interesting to talk about, whether it knows it or not. I'm aiming to watch and write 3 of these up today and then I can leave it for a little while and then come back to it.
Episode plot: It's Marcus' tape and it seems like we're keeping up the narrative of guys being complete and total shit heads and not growing bored of a rumour when it's pretty much dead at this point. Clay also gets played by Sheri (Ajiona Alexus), who he seems to actually like until he finds out that she may have just been acting nice to get him to stop listening to the tapes.
Scar: I'm so bothered by the fact that Clay no longer has a plaster over his head gash, why has he not seen a doctor or nurse or someone with some sort of medical history? That thing genuinely looks like it could get infected any moment and I just need him to cover it up. For his own health as well as mine because that is giving me some severe stress related health issues...Although that could be eating 5 packs of Jaffa Cakes and living off coffee. I'm not sure, either way, I hope that that scar doesn't become some sort of health issue for Clay. This precious boy needs protecting.
Marcus: Remember how I said that Marcus was probably my favourite? At least for that one episode. Well, he sucks now. He's terrible. Why? Well, I'm gonna learn you a thing about the guys in this show. They all seem to think it's appropriate to somehow assault a girl because "she's easy".
I'll elaborate. It's Valentine's day (I think) at the school and they're doing a fundraiser "Oh my dollar valentine" where you pay a dollar, fill out a form saying who you are and what you're looking for in a partner. You hand the form back and you're given matches based on your answers with the person's number beside their name. That's a huge issue on its own but we'll leave it at that. Hannah ends up on Marcus' list so he calls her and asks her out. She spends a while thinking about it but decides she'll go out with him. He shows up like an hour late with all his friends and they seem to be watching them. Turns out, Marcus only appears to be a nice guy to Hannah when all he wants is to fuck her. He moves from his side of the booth to sitting beside her and runs his hand up her leg and under her skirt. Hannah obviously fights him off to which Marcus kicks off with her and storms out, probably feeling like he's wasted his time. Hannah just sits there in stunned silence and is visibly upset.
I don't know which is worse really, the attempted assault or the workers seemingly not caring about the very loud kick off and the clearly very upset girl shaking and crying in the booth. Now if this is really what went down then the workers are just horrible or just don't care. It's fairly likely that this is what happened but at the same time, we're also just listening to this from the point of view of a dead person, we can't fully trust this as we can't get the proper verification of these events. During Hannah's closing monologue, we see Zach sitting opposite Hannah so I think Zach is next on the list.
Clay: This poor guy is going through so much because of these tapes. He's getting so upset and the people around him think it's down to grief which, I suppose some of it is but it's probably mostly down to the emotional torture of these tapes. I really can't imagine what this is like for him and then for him to just seemingly get used by a girl he seems to genuinely have feelings for just adds a whole other level of emotional upset to this poor guy. Honestly, I won't be surprised if by the end of the series Clay ends up with Hannah. It's horrible just watching him want to reach out but ultimately can't because he doesn't know what sort of consequence he'll face from it. Will it be a beating from the people at school? Will it be unwanted therapy from the school? Will he have to testify in court? What about the pain it would put Hannah's parents through and would it be worth all of that trouble? I feel so bad for him and at this point, I hope he did something fucking terrible to make all this pain justified.
Guy talk: For all my complaints about this show, it seems to capture how guys talk about girls. Some are complete dickholes whereas some are nice and help others find love. I can only speak about how the lovely English boys talk, and the majority are almost complete scumbags. Then again I am only 19 and therefore I don't have much experience with mature guys, regardless it seems to have captured the language almost perfectly. It's nice to see a variety in language even when it seems that the characters themselves are a bit dull.
That's it for episode 6, it's taken me like a week to do this. When I started writing about this one I felt like I had little to no motivation and somehow I've found a little bit of motivation so I'm gonna burn that shit out and blast through as many of these that I can before I lose all energy to do anything again. See ya in the next one, peace.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on its platform.
13 Reasons Why
Episode 6: Tape 3 Side B
This show is exhausting to watch. Or at least it is for me, I just have no motivation to want to finish this series and good God am I ready for this to just end. At least this one gave me something somewhat interesting to talk about, whether it knows it or not. I'm aiming to watch and write 3 of these up today and then I can leave it for a little while and then come back to it.
Episode plot: It's Marcus' tape and it seems like we're keeping up the narrative of guys being complete and total shit heads and not growing bored of a rumour when it's pretty much dead at this point. Clay also gets played by Sheri (Ajiona Alexus), who he seems to actually like until he finds out that she may have just been acting nice to get him to stop listening to the tapes.
Scar: I'm so bothered by the fact that Clay no longer has a plaster over his head gash, why has he not seen a doctor or nurse or someone with some sort of medical history? That thing genuinely looks like it could get infected any moment and I just need him to cover it up. For his own health as well as mine because that is giving me some severe stress related health issues...Although that could be eating 5 packs of Jaffa Cakes and living off coffee. I'm not sure, either way, I hope that that scar doesn't become some sort of health issue for Clay. This precious boy needs protecting.
Marcus: Remember how I said that Marcus was probably my favourite? At least for that one episode. Well, he sucks now. He's terrible. Why? Well, I'm gonna learn you a thing about the guys in this show. They all seem to think it's appropriate to somehow assault a girl because "she's easy".
I'll elaborate. It's Valentine's day (I think) at the school and they're doing a fundraiser "Oh my dollar valentine" where you pay a dollar, fill out a form saying who you are and what you're looking for in a partner. You hand the form back and you're given matches based on your answers with the person's number beside their name. That's a huge issue on its own but we'll leave it at that. Hannah ends up on Marcus' list so he calls her and asks her out. She spends a while thinking about it but decides she'll go out with him. He shows up like an hour late with all his friends and they seem to be watching them. Turns out, Marcus only appears to be a nice guy to Hannah when all he wants is to fuck her. He moves from his side of the booth to sitting beside her and runs his hand up her leg and under her skirt. Hannah obviously fights him off to which Marcus kicks off with her and storms out, probably feeling like he's wasted his time. Hannah just sits there in stunned silence and is visibly upset.
I don't know which is worse really, the attempted assault or the workers seemingly not caring about the very loud kick off and the clearly very upset girl shaking and crying in the booth. Now if this is really what went down then the workers are just horrible or just don't care. It's fairly likely that this is what happened but at the same time, we're also just listening to this from the point of view of a dead person, we can't fully trust this as we can't get the proper verification of these events. During Hannah's closing monologue, we see Zach sitting opposite Hannah so I think Zach is next on the list.
Clay: This poor guy is going through so much because of these tapes. He's getting so upset and the people around him think it's down to grief which, I suppose some of it is but it's probably mostly down to the emotional torture of these tapes. I really can't imagine what this is like for him and then for him to just seemingly get used by a girl he seems to genuinely have feelings for just adds a whole other level of emotional upset to this poor guy. Honestly, I won't be surprised if by the end of the series Clay ends up with Hannah. It's horrible just watching him want to reach out but ultimately can't because he doesn't know what sort of consequence he'll face from it. Will it be a beating from the people at school? Will it be unwanted therapy from the school? Will he have to testify in court? What about the pain it would put Hannah's parents through and would it be worth all of that trouble? I feel so bad for him and at this point, I hope he did something fucking terrible to make all this pain justified.
Guy talk: For all my complaints about this show, it seems to capture how guys talk about girls. Some are complete dickholes whereas some are nice and help others find love. I can only speak about how the lovely English boys talk, and the majority are almost complete scumbags. Then again I am only 19 and therefore I don't have much experience with mature guys, regardless it seems to have captured the language almost perfectly. It's nice to see a variety in language even when it seems that the characters themselves are a bit dull.
That's it for episode 6, it's taken me like a week to do this. When I started writing about this one I felt like I had little to no motivation and somehow I've found a little bit of motivation so I'm gonna burn that shit out and blast through as many of these that I can before I lose all energy to do anything again. See ya in the next one, peace.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on its platform.
Thursday, 11 May 2017
13 Reasons Why - Episode 5
I wrote the notes for this a week ago and fully forgot to write about it then.
13 Reasons Why
Episode 5: Tape 3, side A.
I'm getting so sick of Hannah, I really am. I get that teenagers make small things extra dramatic and exaggerated but I feel like this episode is just stating the obvious. Girls are evil. Yes, we are, we're manipulative, nasty and fake as fuck, especially in school. Girls are fucking horrible, we will pick apart anything we find fault in, we grow out of it enough to be tolerable in society but there is always that underlying thing of us being nasty and most of the time, it'll take something big to unleash that beast. This episode seems to think that nobody knows how nasty girls are and seems to want to hammer home that girls are evil and that this is important to know.
Episode plot: Courtney Crimson is a backstabber and a liar, this is her tape for being a scared girl who is also a bit of a bitch.
Courtney: First of all, what sort of fucking name is Courtney Crimson? It's like Jupiter Jones or Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey or some other stupid shit like that. It's a really painfully unimaginative and I feel like this name would be way more at home in a DC movie. The shitty thing that Courtney does here is telling a guy (I don't remember which one and I'm not watching the whole episode again just for a name) that Hannah get fingered and sucked dick on a park. Very typical weekend behaviour among teenagers in England but apparently not so much in America so of course this upset's Hannah. In Courtney's defence, if the positions were reversed, Hannah would probably do the exact same thing or worse.
Clay: Clay seems to be falling down the rabbit hole of depression and that's worrying me. If this series ends with him in a grave next to Hannah's I'm gonna be so pissed off, it's going to be because of these tapes that he did that and that's not going to be very productive to this narrative the show is trying to push. Actually, I don't know what narrative this show is trying to push...
Clay also has a bit of a dick moment, taking Courtney to Hannah's grave. Courtney is very clearly distressed by this which...who wouldn't be? Things like this have to be done in a person's own time and you shouldn't force them to confront this sort of thing until they're ready to do it themselves. This could have some sort of traumatic effect on Courtney, I mean, she's listened to her tape and knows what she did and now she's having to look at the consequence of her actions? She may not have dealt with what she's done yet and like I said, this could have really screwed her up emotionally.
I'm kind of not loving Clay so much but I can sort of see where he's coming with this shit. He can't stand what these people have done to Hannah because obviously he really liked her and because he's not gotten to his tape yet, he doesn't want to deal with his own consequence yet and therefore is going overboard on punishing others.
The Crimson men: These guys are hilarious, I can't deal with it. They are the gay couple who are parents to Courtney, again I don't remember names but if they come up in future episodes I'll credit them. In this episode, they only have one scene in the coffee shop with Courtney and they're discussing having a dinner with another family. One of them suggests she brings Zach (Ross Butler), the other agrees and adds that they would have beautiful babies, to which his husband tells him that he can't say that because Quote: "it's racist and sexist."
How is saying a couple would have beautiful babies be interpreted as racist and sexist? Is it because both of them are Asian and the two of them would have beautiful babies because of that? Is it sexist because he's saying she'd have a baby? Fuck, I don't get it at all but it's hilarious nonetheless.
The tapes: It seems that Tony is responsible for this method of torture. After he fixes Hannah's car at the Winter Formal, Hannah tells him that she thinks it's cool that he still listens to tapes. At the very least we know that her parents sell blank cassette tapes and that's where she got them from to be able to record them. One mystery down I guess.
The dream: There's a really well-done dream sequence to open up the episode, that's not even a spoiler, you can tell by the way Clay is behaving around Hannah. It's really nice and shows more or less what Clay is going through in his subconscious and the way that Hannah yells at him to do something could be showing that he feels some sort of guilt for not doing anything when he didn't know anything was wrong. I don't know but it's good to be able to use what I learned about semiotics in first year. Always good to use your education.
Hannah: Hannah, once again, barely does anything in this episode besides kick off with her friend for stabbing her in the back which is understandable but at the same time, I still don't like her because her attitude still fucking stinks.
That's it for this one, I really don't know how I can even carry on watching this series because it's just boring and repetitive and I almost don't really want to watch the emotional downfall of a generally sweet character that has, so far, done nothing wrong to this girl other than be a bit of an idiot. Thing is, I'm 5 episodes in, I'm committed to this, I'm not giving up I might take a break because I don't have the energy but I'm gonna get through it. Fucking watch me. That's it for today though, I'm out.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on its platform.
13 Reasons Why
Episode 5: Tape 3, side A.
I'm getting so sick of Hannah, I really am. I get that teenagers make small things extra dramatic and exaggerated but I feel like this episode is just stating the obvious. Girls are evil. Yes, we are, we're manipulative, nasty and fake as fuck, especially in school. Girls are fucking horrible, we will pick apart anything we find fault in, we grow out of it enough to be tolerable in society but there is always that underlying thing of us being nasty and most of the time, it'll take something big to unleash that beast. This episode seems to think that nobody knows how nasty girls are and seems to want to hammer home that girls are evil and that this is important to know.
Episode plot: Courtney Crimson is a backstabber and a liar, this is her tape for being a scared girl who is also a bit of a bitch.
Courtney: First of all, what sort of fucking name is Courtney Crimson? It's like Jupiter Jones or Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey or some other stupid shit like that. It's a really painfully unimaginative and I feel like this name would be way more at home in a DC movie. The shitty thing that Courtney does here is telling a guy (I don't remember which one and I'm not watching the whole episode again just for a name) that Hannah get fingered and sucked dick on a park. Very typical weekend behaviour among teenagers in England but apparently not so much in America so of course this upset's Hannah. In Courtney's defence, if the positions were reversed, Hannah would probably do the exact same thing or worse.
Clay: Clay seems to be falling down the rabbit hole of depression and that's worrying me. If this series ends with him in a grave next to Hannah's I'm gonna be so pissed off, it's going to be because of these tapes that he did that and that's not going to be very productive to this narrative the show is trying to push. Actually, I don't know what narrative this show is trying to push...
Clay also has a bit of a dick moment, taking Courtney to Hannah's grave. Courtney is very clearly distressed by this which...who wouldn't be? Things like this have to be done in a person's own time and you shouldn't force them to confront this sort of thing until they're ready to do it themselves. This could have some sort of traumatic effect on Courtney, I mean, she's listened to her tape and knows what she did and now she's having to look at the consequence of her actions? She may not have dealt with what she's done yet and like I said, this could have really screwed her up emotionally.
I'm kind of not loving Clay so much but I can sort of see where he's coming with this shit. He can't stand what these people have done to Hannah because obviously he really liked her and because he's not gotten to his tape yet, he doesn't want to deal with his own consequence yet and therefore is going overboard on punishing others.
The Crimson men: These guys are hilarious, I can't deal with it. They are the gay couple who are parents to Courtney, again I don't remember names but if they come up in future episodes I'll credit them. In this episode, they only have one scene in the coffee shop with Courtney and they're discussing having a dinner with another family. One of them suggests she brings Zach (Ross Butler), the other agrees and adds that they would have beautiful babies, to which his husband tells him that he can't say that because Quote: "it's racist and sexist."
How is saying a couple would have beautiful babies be interpreted as racist and sexist? Is it because both of them are Asian and the two of them would have beautiful babies because of that? Is it sexist because he's saying she'd have a baby? Fuck, I don't get it at all but it's hilarious nonetheless.
The tapes: It seems that Tony is responsible for this method of torture. After he fixes Hannah's car at the Winter Formal, Hannah tells him that she thinks it's cool that he still listens to tapes. At the very least we know that her parents sell blank cassette tapes and that's where she got them from to be able to record them. One mystery down I guess.
The dream: There's a really well-done dream sequence to open up the episode, that's not even a spoiler, you can tell by the way Clay is behaving around Hannah. It's really nice and shows more or less what Clay is going through in his subconscious and the way that Hannah yells at him to do something could be showing that he feels some sort of guilt for not doing anything when he didn't know anything was wrong. I don't know but it's good to be able to use what I learned about semiotics in first year. Always good to use your education.
Hannah: Hannah, once again, barely does anything in this episode besides kick off with her friend for stabbing her in the back which is understandable but at the same time, I still don't like her because her attitude still fucking stinks.
That's it for this one, I really don't know how I can even carry on watching this series because it's just boring and repetitive and I almost don't really want to watch the emotional downfall of a generally sweet character that has, so far, done nothing wrong to this girl other than be a bit of an idiot. Thing is, I'm 5 episodes in, I'm committed to this, I'm not giving up I might take a break because I don't have the energy but I'm gonna get through it. Fucking watch me. That's it for today though, I'm out.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on its platform.
Sunday, 7 May 2017
13 Reasons Why - Episode 4
What the fuck is up with everyone?!
13 Reasons Why
Episode 4: Tape 2 side B
So far, this episode has the worst message with the worst intention. Make your own justice. I can see how that can be a good thing I mean, as a teenager nobody takes you seriously and at one point I've had to get my own justice for something but that doesn't mean it's right. You shouldn't do that. I in no way advocate violence in any way and you definitely shouldn't encourage others to be violent to another person. It's not funny, all you're doing is giving another person pain or fear. If you feel so strongly about what this person has done to you, talk to the police. Do not insight violence on others.
Episode plot: Hannah has a stalker and decides to encourage others to damage that person's home, Clay takes it to a whole other disgusting level.
Marcus: Marcus (Steven Silver) is my absolute favourite person in this episode. First, he shows up in this really cool sombrero that lights up and plays a song. My absolute favourite hat. Then he brings us a well-needed slice of truth. Clay says something about the rules of listening to the tapes which...I literally don't remember them, I really don't, to which Marcus tells him -
Quote: "Dude, Hannah's dead. I'm sorry but it's true, nothing anyone did to her was any different than what happens to every girl that ever went to high school. She just wanted attention. And then leaving those tapes? That's a fucked up thing to do, no one deserves that."
Seems to sum up my thoughts on her pretty well. The only thing I didn't like about him was that he called Taylor (Devin Druid) a psycho. I mean yeah he did some gross things but not psychopathic.
Taylor: So what did he do to be called a "psycho"? He stalked Hannah, took pictures of her in her bedroom and took pictures of her making out with Courtney (Michele Selene Ang) and then had the gall to spread one of the pictures around school when she rejects him. This is horrible behaviour but in no way deserves what comes to him.
What Hannah should have done was talk to either someone at the school with Courtney, they have the proof that photos were taken, they both caught him at the same time and maybe he had backup copies on his phone or in his dark room. All they had to do was keep quiet about telling someone about it and he'd have been busted and suffered the proper consequences.
Hannah: Good fuck I don't know what the worst thing she's done so far is. She made these tapes blaming everyone in her life for this. She made a second set of the tapes because why the shit not. She never left her parents a tape or a note to ease their thoughts (to an extent). She didn't have to give them 13 tapes telling them who did it and how she could just tell them that her head wasn't in the right place to carry on living or something like that. Maybe just a note telling them it's not their fault. I dunno, just a shitty move. Finally, she encourages the people who listen to the tapes to throw rocks at Taylors window. That's a new level of shitty.
She says she wants him to feel what she felt, to not feel safe in his own bedroom. How nasty is that? How sadistic is that? How can she wish that on someone else? What if she was beaten and raped in her own room? Would she wish that on whoever did that to her? Fucking disgusting, honestly.
Clay: Speaking of disgusting behaviour, Clay, as I said before, takes it to a new level. Rather than throw a rock at his bedroom window, he takes a picture of Taylor from behind, naked and sends it around in a group message to the whole damn school. When Tony asks him "what the hell?" (see it's in this one too just not directed at Tony) Clay replies "Making my own justice." I'm not sure the exact wording but it was something along that line. And that is vile behaviour.
If there are kids watching this, like 12-18-year-olds, do not take this as how you should deal with things. Actually y'know what, no matter how old you are, don't do this shit. Just because someone did this to you doesn't mean you should do it back or get people to do it to you. Do not be this horrible. This episode promotes violence and violation of privacy because "they deserve it". Nobody deserves it and please do not listen to the message of this episode. Anyway, that's me done for the day, I'm hungry I'm gonna go get food. Peace out guys.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on its platform.
13 Reasons Why
Episode 4: Tape 2 side B
So far, this episode has the worst message with the worst intention. Make your own justice. I can see how that can be a good thing I mean, as a teenager nobody takes you seriously and at one point I've had to get my own justice for something but that doesn't mean it's right. You shouldn't do that. I in no way advocate violence in any way and you definitely shouldn't encourage others to be violent to another person. It's not funny, all you're doing is giving another person pain or fear. If you feel so strongly about what this person has done to you, talk to the police. Do not insight violence on others.
Episode plot: Hannah has a stalker and decides to encourage others to damage that person's home, Clay takes it to a whole other disgusting level.
Marcus: Marcus (Steven Silver) is my absolute favourite person in this episode. First, he shows up in this really cool sombrero that lights up and plays a song. My absolute favourite hat. Then he brings us a well-needed slice of truth. Clay says something about the rules of listening to the tapes which...I literally don't remember them, I really don't, to which Marcus tells him -
Quote: "Dude, Hannah's dead. I'm sorry but it's true, nothing anyone did to her was any different than what happens to every girl that ever went to high school. She just wanted attention. And then leaving those tapes? That's a fucked up thing to do, no one deserves that."
Seems to sum up my thoughts on her pretty well. The only thing I didn't like about him was that he called Taylor (Devin Druid) a psycho. I mean yeah he did some gross things but not psychopathic.
Taylor: So what did he do to be called a "psycho"? He stalked Hannah, took pictures of her in her bedroom and took pictures of her making out with Courtney (Michele Selene Ang) and then had the gall to spread one of the pictures around school when she rejects him. This is horrible behaviour but in no way deserves what comes to him.
What Hannah should have done was talk to either someone at the school with Courtney, they have the proof that photos were taken, they both caught him at the same time and maybe he had backup copies on his phone or in his dark room. All they had to do was keep quiet about telling someone about it and he'd have been busted and suffered the proper consequences.
Hannah: Good fuck I don't know what the worst thing she's done so far is. She made these tapes blaming everyone in her life for this. She made a second set of the tapes because why the shit not. She never left her parents a tape or a note to ease their thoughts (to an extent). She didn't have to give them 13 tapes telling them who did it and how she could just tell them that her head wasn't in the right place to carry on living or something like that. Maybe just a note telling them it's not their fault. I dunno, just a shitty move. Finally, she encourages the people who listen to the tapes to throw rocks at Taylors window. That's a new level of shitty.
She says she wants him to feel what she felt, to not feel safe in his own bedroom. How nasty is that? How sadistic is that? How can she wish that on someone else? What if she was beaten and raped in her own room? Would she wish that on whoever did that to her? Fucking disgusting, honestly.
Clay: Speaking of disgusting behaviour, Clay, as I said before, takes it to a new level. Rather than throw a rock at his bedroom window, he takes a picture of Taylor from behind, naked and sends it around in a group message to the whole damn school. When Tony asks him "what the hell?" (see it's in this one too just not directed at Tony) Clay replies "Making my own justice." I'm not sure the exact wording but it was something along that line. And that is vile behaviour.
If there are kids watching this, like 12-18-year-olds, do not take this as how you should deal with things. Actually y'know what, no matter how old you are, don't do this shit. Just because someone did this to you doesn't mean you should do it back or get people to do it to you. Do not be this horrible. This episode promotes violence and violation of privacy because "they deserve it". Nobody deserves it and please do not listen to the message of this episode. Anyway, that's me done for the day, I'm hungry I'm gonna go get food. Peace out guys.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on its platform.
Sunday, 30 April 2017
13 Reasons Why - Episode 3
Alex's very boring tape
13 Reasons Why
Episode 3: Tape 2 side A
Honestly, this episode was just boring, it reiterated the same point over and over. Boys are dicks and will write mean things about you. I'm going to say now that this one might not be all that long because this episode's biggest crime was that it was just boring and I don't like repeating my same points over and over.
Episode plot: It's Alex's turn to take the blame because he took part in writing a list about the best and worst features on girls at school. It seems as though she covered this in her previous tape about Jessica and she probably could have put them both on the same tape.
Title card: Since the first episode something has been bugging me about the opening credits, and it's not just the fact that they're kind of unnecessary for a Netflix show that people binge on. It's taken me a little while to realise why I can't stand it and it's the way that the title of the show is presented to us. It's not just 13 Reasons Why or Thirteen Reasons Why, for whatever reason, someone decided that it'd be fun to combine the two, giving us Th1rteen R3asons Why and doesn't that just look fucking ugly? Do the people behind the scenes creating the title card think teenagers write this way? Especially highschoolers? I mean...maybe back in the early 2000's when Sk8r Boy was a thing it was probably cool to write that way but fuck, that's an assault to the eyes right there.
Clay: In this episode, we see Clay take a fucking volleyball to the wound on his head in gym class. It kind of comes out of nowhere but the guy wasn't paying attention and managed to just get smashed. It's painful to see and of course, the guy swears over the pain he's in. Does his gym teacher care? Fuck no, just tells him to watch his language. I mean...what a shitty teacher man. Christ.
Alex: The subject of today's tape and maybe even a victim of Hannah's spiteful tape crusade. Alex does admit to what he did and knows that what he did was terrible and rightfully so, feels terrible about it. He then *SPOILER IF YOU'VE NOT SEEN IT* tries to down himself, I'm not 100% on whether he did drown or if it was just an attempt or it was a very obvious visual metaphor to show how he's "drowning" in his own thoughts over this but damn, was this Hannah's intention? To get people to follow her if they can admit to themselves that they did a shitty thing to her? Is it me or does that sound like something out of a SAW movie?
Hannah: Thankfully, there wasn't a lot of her in this one. She continues to place blame and in this one, I do see how she could be extremely upset over the events. She becomes a pawn in Alex's petty relationship problem which causes her to lose her friend Jessica, she is then getting talked about behind her back and I mean who hasn't had that? Especially girls, girls are fucking horrible creatures and we're even worse in school because that's when we start becoming self-aware. The worst part about the episode which I do feel bad for her is where she's at the corner shop buying chocolate and Brice (Justin Prentice), a friend of Justin's, comes up behind her, grabs and squeezes her arse. That's disgusting behaviour and it's not right that he felt he had the right to do it because Hannah was noted as "best ass" on that list. It's disgusting and this is the only time so far that I support Hannah's right to be severely upset.
Tony: I'm literally going to count how many times Clay says "Tony, what the hell?" Or "What the hell, Tony?" It could be the show's secret catchphrase. Tony is also played by Christian Navarro who looks like he 100% does not belong in high school. He looks like he is in his mid-late 20's and has some gorgeous tattoos. I need some help working this out because are visible tattoos allowed in American high schools for 17/18-year-olds? If so then why is that ok? I need answers guys.
The girl's bathroom: Remember what I said when I was talking about the men's stalls in the first episode? How I was saying it was unrealistic that such lovely things were written on the walls? Remember what I said in an earlier paragraph about high school girls being evil? Turns out in this universe that's true, wanna know what they write on their walls? Here's a fancy little list for y'all.
13 Reasons Why
Episode 3: Tape 2 side A
Honestly, this episode was just boring, it reiterated the same point over and over. Boys are dicks and will write mean things about you. I'm going to say now that this one might not be all that long because this episode's biggest crime was that it was just boring and I don't like repeating my same points over and over.
Episode plot: It's Alex's turn to take the blame because he took part in writing a list about the best and worst features on girls at school. It seems as though she covered this in her previous tape about Jessica and she probably could have put them both on the same tape.
Title card: Since the first episode something has been bugging me about the opening credits, and it's not just the fact that they're kind of unnecessary for a Netflix show that people binge on. It's taken me a little while to realise why I can't stand it and it's the way that the title of the show is presented to us. It's not just 13 Reasons Why or Thirteen Reasons Why, for whatever reason, someone decided that it'd be fun to combine the two, giving us Th1rteen R3asons Why and doesn't that just look fucking ugly? Do the people behind the scenes creating the title card think teenagers write this way? Especially highschoolers? I mean...maybe back in the early 2000's when Sk8r Boy was a thing it was probably cool to write that way but fuck, that's an assault to the eyes right there.
Clay: In this episode, we see Clay take a fucking volleyball to the wound on his head in gym class. It kind of comes out of nowhere but the guy wasn't paying attention and managed to just get smashed. It's painful to see and of course, the guy swears over the pain he's in. Does his gym teacher care? Fuck no, just tells him to watch his language. I mean...what a shitty teacher man. Christ.
Alex: The subject of today's tape and maybe even a victim of Hannah's spiteful tape crusade. Alex does admit to what he did and knows that what he did was terrible and rightfully so, feels terrible about it. He then *SPOILER IF YOU'VE NOT SEEN IT* tries to down himself, I'm not 100% on whether he did drown or if it was just an attempt or it was a very obvious visual metaphor to show how he's "drowning" in his own thoughts over this but damn, was this Hannah's intention? To get people to follow her if they can admit to themselves that they did a shitty thing to her? Is it me or does that sound like something out of a SAW movie?
Hannah: Thankfully, there wasn't a lot of her in this one. She continues to place blame and in this one, I do see how she could be extremely upset over the events. She becomes a pawn in Alex's petty relationship problem which causes her to lose her friend Jessica, she is then getting talked about behind her back and I mean who hasn't had that? Especially girls, girls are fucking horrible creatures and we're even worse in school because that's when we start becoming self-aware. The worst part about the episode which I do feel bad for her is where she's at the corner shop buying chocolate and Brice (Justin Prentice), a friend of Justin's, comes up behind her, grabs and squeezes her arse. That's disgusting behaviour and it's not right that he felt he had the right to do it because Hannah was noted as "best ass" on that list. It's disgusting and this is the only time so far that I support Hannah's right to be severely upset.
Tony: I'm literally going to count how many times Clay says "Tony, what the hell?" Or "What the hell, Tony?" It could be the show's secret catchphrase. Tony is also played by Christian Navarro who looks like he 100% does not belong in high school. He looks like he is in his mid-late 20's and has some gorgeous tattoos. I need some help working this out because are visible tattoos allowed in American high schools for 17/18-year-olds? If so then why is that ok? I need answers guys.
The girl's bathroom: Remember what I said when I was talking about the men's stalls in the first episode? How I was saying it was unrealistic that such lovely things were written on the walls? Remember what I said in an earlier paragraph about high school girls being evil? Turns out in this universe that's true, wanna know what they write on their walls? Here's a fancy little list for y'all.
- Eat me
- Megans a whore - look who's talking bitch
- Amy is / has (I couldn't see it that well) a big wet cunt
- Jamie is such a basic bitch
- Megan is a whore and a cum dumpster
- Lisa is a gang-banger
- Diane is a whore
- D.T / P.T (again I couldn't see it all that well but I'm sure it was one or the other) had an abortion - naming my next abortion after you bitch
- Eat Shit Janis
- Fuck you Amy
- You are so ugly no on would even rape you
How vile is that? Very. How realistic is that? For America, I'm not sure but for over here it's definitely not, the worst thing you see in a women's toilet is the stuff that's meant to be in the toilet, is everywhere but in the toilet. It's a genuine nightmare for a girl to go to the bathroom in public. I don't even know how girls miss the toilet entirely and get stuff up the walls and on the floor. You guys attaching fucking tubes to yourselves and having water fights with the door closed or something? Fuck me, it's disgusting. 10/10 would not recommend using a public bathroom in (at the very least) the North West of England. I have yet to find out what the rest of the country is like.
Anyway, that's what I thought of that one, see you guys whenever for the next one. Hopefully, it won't be as dull as this one was. Peace guys.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on its platform.
Thursday, 27 April 2017
13 Reasons Why - Episode 2
Hot chocolate is the cure for all things shitty
13 Reasons Why
Episode 2: Tape 1 side B.
In this episode, we learn that you can't trust what the dead say. Should be a given because we can't ask them for any more information, thinking about it, why should we trust what anyone says in this story? It's their word against a dead girls. Besides that, we're seeing this how she wants us to see this, to paint herself as the ultimate victim.
Episode plot: Hannah tells the story of how she became friends with another new girl called Jessica (Alisha Boe) and a new guy, Alex (Miles Heizer). Soon enough she discovers that friendship is fake when love is involved.
I have so many problems with this episode. First off, there's the counsellor, Mrs Antilli (Lisa Anne Morrison) who is the happiest person I have ever seen in my entire 19 years of life. I have no idea how anyone can be that sickeningly happy while working in a school. Then there's the fact that Hannah says that once her, Jessica and Alex are all friends, they eventually went their separate ways, or so she thought. It seems that through the lens we're seeing this, the lens Hannah has created, that Alex dropped the girls as friends because he "upgraded" as Hannah puts it. Then Jessica drops Hannah for some reason. We then see that Jessica and Alex are dating and rather than just drop either of them a text saying "hi, what's up? Wanna hang out sometime?" she decides to leave them be.
Jessica tells Clay that it was actually Hannah that stopped coming, bringing his ideas of what he thought to be true crashing down around him as he asks "but why would she lie?" Why would she lie Clay? I'll tell you why, she's manipulating the events to paint herself a nice victim portrait, to show everyone that she was alone and nobody cared.
I understand that depression and a variety of other mental health issues can cause you to pull away from those you care about, I've been there, done that got the t-shirt and been going back and forth on a holiday there for years. But the thing is, you can't make yourself out as a victim because two of your friends got together and you didn't like it so you pulled away from them. That's not how friendship works. As you said, Hannah, friendship is complicated.
You did nothing: At the beginning of the episode, Hannah tells us, in not so many specific words, that her death, whether you're immediately linked to her or not, is your fault. And this seems to be a thing that's probably going to be pushed through every episode and I really can't be bothered with that. This is such a horrible move for this girl to make, has she thought about her own actions? Has she thought that school is going to be over soon and she'll never have to hear these rumours again? Has she thought to just ignore them and find herself some better friends who won't slap her in public and call her a slut? She's definitely planned this out more than she should have and it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out.
Clay: This little bundle of idiot innocence strikes again with not knowing how to talk to a girl. Hannah asks him if he thinks she'll ever be as pretty as Jessica and he pauses like...the fuck? You're really pretty, probably prettier than her. She then gets in a huff which...I understand I've done that more than enough times when it takes Ben more than a second to agree with me that I'm cute as fuck but then he says she's special. Bitch no, you don't do that, that's not a good save. God. This is the only scene in which I like Hannah.
Hannah: My like for Hannah was short lived, unfortunately. At the start of the episode, Hannah is telling us that she knows why we're still listening to these tapes, we want to know who else killed her and how. It's disgustingly smug and she finishes her little speech with Quote: "oh and by the way, I'm still dead." What a horrible thing to say, of course you're still dead, listening to these tapes and forcing people to be guilt ridden isn't going to bring you back, nor is it going to bring you any sort of satisfaction. If you'd faked your death and were watching this from afar to see the misery you were causing that would be understandable but you're dead. There is no point in this aside from petty vengeance for your friend getting a boyfriend.
The tapes: There's an investigation into Hannah's suicide and so far at least 4 people, not counting Clay have listened to these tapes. Why has nobody thought to hand these into the police? It could be helpful in finding out what happened and from Hannah's point of view too. Then again with Hannah not saying anything was her fault and manipulating the story so as to make the listener to feel guilty, maybe that's a good enough reason to not tell the police. Why should they trust the manipulator?
Overall, I still can't stand Hannah, and she seems to become a slightly worse person as these tapes go on, there's only so much I can take before I go mad and say things I will regret about her. Maybe she'll make me a tape. Anyway, that's it from me today, I'm heading out and enjoying the day for once so peace out guys.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on its platform.
Hannah: My like for Hannah was short lived, unfortunately. At the start of the episode, Hannah is telling us that she knows why we're still listening to these tapes, we want to know who else killed her and how. It's disgustingly smug and she finishes her little speech with Quote: "oh and by the way, I'm still dead." What a horrible thing to say, of course you're still dead, listening to these tapes and forcing people to be guilt ridden isn't going to bring you back, nor is it going to bring you any sort of satisfaction. If you'd faked your death and were watching this from afar to see the misery you were causing that would be understandable but you're dead. There is no point in this aside from petty vengeance for your friend getting a boyfriend.
The tapes: There's an investigation into Hannah's suicide and so far at least 4 people, not counting Clay have listened to these tapes. Why has nobody thought to hand these into the police? It could be helpful in finding out what happened and from Hannah's point of view too. Then again with Hannah not saying anything was her fault and manipulating the story so as to make the listener to feel guilty, maybe that's a good enough reason to not tell the police. Why should they trust the manipulator?
Overall, I still can't stand Hannah, and she seems to become a slightly worse person as these tapes go on, there's only so much I can take before I go mad and say things I will regret about her. Maybe she'll make me a tape. Anyway, that's it from me today, I'm heading out and enjoying the day for once so peace out guys.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on its platform.
Saturday, 22 April 2017
13 Reasons Why - Episode 1
Boy am I late to this party...
13 Reasons Why
Episode 1: Tape 1, side A.
I understand I'm very late to jumping onto this trend but that's because I didn't want to. I saw all the hype and thought no, I'm probably not going to get into it, forget it. But then I started seeing extremely opposing opinions on it and people threatening to delete each other from Facebook if they thought the show was good or bad. Some people thought it was boring or ok but that was a very small group of people in comparison, and the number of memes that flooding my feed was unbelievable so I decided to just watch the first episode and see what there is and whether it's worth talking about. Let me tell you something now, the first episode of any series is usually kind of boring to a lot of people, that's because they need to establish characters, connections and personalities. That's how it always goes, it's also there to give the rest of the story a base to start from, whether it's something that has nothing to do with the end or if it's a key part, it's always the most important episode, regardless of whether it's a bit boring or not, you have to at least get to the third episode to see if there's anything of substance. So with that in mind, I'm only going to talk about the plot to the series, this episode and the character we see and hear a lot of, Hannah (Katherine Langford).
Opening: The best thing about the show is that before the credits start which...why do Netflix do opening credits? I know they're there to get the viewer interested in what they're watching but like, it's Netflix, you got us hooked already and you know that we're gonna binge watch and you know for a fact that we're not going to forget that we're watching the same series. There's just no need guys.
As I was saying before the credits start there's a notice telling the viewer that if you've been affected by the issues tackled in the show to contact the Samaritans. The notice also gives information about how to do that and also tells you that the calls to the Samaritans helplines do not show up on phone bills. This is such a helpful notice because even though the show is about a girl who could have done this, she decides to be petty as shit.
Series plot: A girl has killed herself and as a part of her plan, she decides not to seek out help for her mental health or reach out to talk to anyone, she instead opts to record herself pushing blame onto the people around her via cassette tape. She knows that this method will take time for people get through and maybe even cost them a hell of a lot of money because cassette players are fairly expensive and not everyone has one at their disposal but does she care? No, she just wants to be unique.
At least, that's my opinion on the plot. This is probably the most attention seeking way I've seen blame get shifted onto others. The fact that she could have helped herself rather than carry out this petty plan is baffling. Why would you do that? Do you want people to suffer as you did? Maybe even leading them to end their lives the same way you did? How horrible a person do you have to be to do that? I'll admit I can be quite petty but I would never go this far as to be so horrible to those around me in my life.
Episode plot: This first episode is about Hannah's first kiss with her friend's ex, Justin (Brandon Flynn). More specifically, this episode is about Clay (Dylan Minnette) being sent the tapes that Hannah took the time to get a hold of and record onto, and he listens to them, wondering what the hell he did to her because she says that if you're listening to the tapes, you have some of her blood on your hands.
Clay, throughout this episode, is a lovely guy to Hannah, and he makes one stupid comment about "waiting for the right time" which she mistakes for him calling her a slut and storms out on him. When he gets the tapes and hears that he may have some blame on his shoulders he's understandably freaked out because he has no idea what he's done, and if the worst thing he did was accidentally call her a slut because he wasn't thinking about his choice of words then Hannah is an idiot. Boys don't think about what they're saying, they just say the words that come into their brains and spit it out, only realising afterwards when someone is visibly upset by them. Actually, it's not even just boys, girls do it. Point being, if this is the worst that Clay has done then he definitely shouldn't have received these tapes.
Hannah: I am not a fan of this character. When you first hear her voice she sounds so smug, like she's won the jackpot and is rubbing the lottery ticket in a homeless person's face. She is talking to the listener of the tapes like this was their fault. The way this character holds herself on screen is horrible, she acts as if she is Queen Bee of those around her and everybody is below her. Her attitude stinks, even for a teenager. She has such a condescending tone to her voice and when she speaks to Clay, telling him he hurt her feelings, she acts like he just hit her or something. I understand she was upset but there was just no need to do that. Just tell him what happened rather than let him think what he wants, treat him like you want to be his friend rather than walk over him.
Bathroom graffiti: I almost forgot about this but at the first part of the episode Clay is hiding out in the men's bathroom in a stall to just get away from everything for a little bit. I paused the episode and saw some wall writing that definitely wouldn't be written in the men's room, probably not even in the women's. There were only two that I could see clearly which were:
Quote: "No means NO"
Quote: "Don't let the world bring you down"
I asked a couple of guys whether this would be seen in the men's room and they both said no 'cause, as a female, I can only go off assumptions of what the men's room must be like. However, I will assume it's cleaner than the women's because trust me, I can share some horror stories about the ladies school and public bathrooms. I've heard some things about later in the series which these quotes could tie into but I'm gonna have to wait and see.
Anyway, that's it for that episode. It was ok, kind of boring and I don't like Hannah at all. Clay seems nice enough though and I'm glad that he's the character we get to follow throughout the series. I don't know what days I'll be posting these and I thought it would be better to post episodes separately so I can talk more in depth about it. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this, I've got 12 more episodes to get through and it's gonna be fun to try something new.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on it's platform.
13 Reasons Why
Episode 1: Tape 1, side A.
I understand I'm very late to jumping onto this trend but that's because I didn't want to. I saw all the hype and thought no, I'm probably not going to get into it, forget it. But then I started seeing extremely opposing opinions on it and people threatening to delete each other from Facebook if they thought the show was good or bad. Some people thought it was boring or ok but that was a very small group of people in comparison, and the number of memes that flooding my feed was unbelievable so I decided to just watch the first episode and see what there is and whether it's worth talking about. Let me tell you something now, the first episode of any series is usually kind of boring to a lot of people, that's because they need to establish characters, connections and personalities. That's how it always goes, it's also there to give the rest of the story a base to start from, whether it's something that has nothing to do with the end or if it's a key part, it's always the most important episode, regardless of whether it's a bit boring or not, you have to at least get to the third episode to see if there's anything of substance. So with that in mind, I'm only going to talk about the plot to the series, this episode and the character we see and hear a lot of, Hannah (Katherine Langford).
Opening: The best thing about the show is that before the credits start which...why do Netflix do opening credits? I know they're there to get the viewer interested in what they're watching but like, it's Netflix, you got us hooked already and you know that we're gonna binge watch and you know for a fact that we're not going to forget that we're watching the same series. There's just no need guys.
As I was saying before the credits start there's a notice telling the viewer that if you've been affected by the issues tackled in the show to contact the Samaritans. The notice also gives information about how to do that and also tells you that the calls to the Samaritans helplines do not show up on phone bills. This is such a helpful notice because even though the show is about a girl who could have done this, she decides to be petty as shit.
Series plot: A girl has killed herself and as a part of her plan, she decides not to seek out help for her mental health or reach out to talk to anyone, she instead opts to record herself pushing blame onto the people around her via cassette tape. She knows that this method will take time for people get through and maybe even cost them a hell of a lot of money because cassette players are fairly expensive and not everyone has one at their disposal but does she care? No, she just wants to be unique.
At least, that's my opinion on the plot. This is probably the most attention seeking way I've seen blame get shifted onto others. The fact that she could have helped herself rather than carry out this petty plan is baffling. Why would you do that? Do you want people to suffer as you did? Maybe even leading them to end their lives the same way you did? How horrible a person do you have to be to do that? I'll admit I can be quite petty but I would never go this far as to be so horrible to those around me in my life.
Episode plot: This first episode is about Hannah's first kiss with her friend's ex, Justin (Brandon Flynn). More specifically, this episode is about Clay (Dylan Minnette) being sent the tapes that Hannah took the time to get a hold of and record onto, and he listens to them, wondering what the hell he did to her because she says that if you're listening to the tapes, you have some of her blood on your hands.
Clay, throughout this episode, is a lovely guy to Hannah, and he makes one stupid comment about "waiting for the right time" which she mistakes for him calling her a slut and storms out on him. When he gets the tapes and hears that he may have some blame on his shoulders he's understandably freaked out because he has no idea what he's done, and if the worst thing he did was accidentally call her a slut because he wasn't thinking about his choice of words then Hannah is an idiot. Boys don't think about what they're saying, they just say the words that come into their brains and spit it out, only realising afterwards when someone is visibly upset by them. Actually, it's not even just boys, girls do it. Point being, if this is the worst that Clay has done then he definitely shouldn't have received these tapes.
Hannah: I am not a fan of this character. When you first hear her voice she sounds so smug, like she's won the jackpot and is rubbing the lottery ticket in a homeless person's face. She is talking to the listener of the tapes like this was their fault. The way this character holds herself on screen is horrible, she acts as if she is Queen Bee of those around her and everybody is below her. Her attitude stinks, even for a teenager. She has such a condescending tone to her voice and when she speaks to Clay, telling him he hurt her feelings, she acts like he just hit her or something. I understand she was upset but there was just no need to do that. Just tell him what happened rather than let him think what he wants, treat him like you want to be his friend rather than walk over him.
Bathroom graffiti: I almost forgot about this but at the first part of the episode Clay is hiding out in the men's bathroom in a stall to just get away from everything for a little bit. I paused the episode and saw some wall writing that definitely wouldn't be written in the men's room, probably not even in the women's. There were only two that I could see clearly which were:
Quote: "No means NO"
Quote: "Don't let the world bring you down"
I asked a couple of guys whether this would be seen in the men's room and they both said no 'cause, as a female, I can only go off assumptions of what the men's room must be like. However, I will assume it's cleaner than the women's because trust me, I can share some horror stories about the ladies school and public bathrooms. I've heard some things about later in the series which these quotes could tie into but I'm gonna have to wait and see.
Anyway, that's it for that episode. It was ok, kind of boring and I don't like Hannah at all. Clay seems nice enough though and I'm glad that he's the character we get to follow throughout the series. I don't know what days I'll be posting these and I thought it would be better to post episodes separately so I can talk more in depth about it. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this, I've got 12 more episodes to get through and it's gonna be fun to try something new.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this episode/series. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this series then go and support its creators by watching it again on it's platform.
Wednesday, 19 April 2017
Salad Fingers
Scarier than any horror movie out these days.
Creator: David Firth
I wanted to do a series, maybe it's not a film film but you can easily watch it all together and get an hours worth of footage in which you can see some sort of a storyline forming. I personally only saw a storyline which came from me intensely watching The Film Theorists theory on this series over and over again because I apparently have no life anymore if that's all I'm gonna fuckin' do. Side note, not bashing that channel, they're great love 'em go look at them if you've not already.
How am I going to talk about the series then? I have no idea, I could just do my overall thoughts on it or I could do thoughts on each episode and then talk about it overall. Probably going to do the latter. Fuck, I don't know shit. Ok, grab a brew and let's get into it.
Episode one: Spoons.
I remember the first time I ever saw this, I was in my year 9 R.E class and all we ever did that year was watch films and discuss the religious element in these films. Every film we watched, it was blatantly obvious with the religious themes eg Bruce Almighty but sometimes towards the end of class, if we'd covered everything we needed to, our teacher would let us fuck about on Youtube and that is where I was first introduced to our leafy green friend. I won't lie to you, I was disturbed. Watching this...thing on the interactive whiteboard run it's fingers over rusty spoons and kettles made me so uncomfortable. The background music and the soft, high-pitched voice only added to the discomfort. This feeling was definitely not shaken when I watched it again for notes. It was duller than it was before, but it was still there. Overall I thought this short episode was a bit creepy and definitely still uncomfortable.
Episode two: Friends.
I hated this episode. It took the uncomfortable feeling from the first episode and just dialled it up, but I did notice some things about Salad Fingers himself. He has hair on his fingers. I don't know why I thought that was important to note down but it was important. Maybe it's because it just seemed a little strange that a character known as Salad Fingers has hair on them, is the salad mouldy? I don't know like I said, I just thought it was important. Why have I said that this was the one dialled up the discomfort factor? There's a strange tonal shift in this episode. There's a moment in which Salad traps a child in the oven, seemingly innocently as he says that he is cooking a fish but can't reach it. Salad sticks a nail through his finger, tells us how he loves when the "red water" comes out, he then passes out and we see his dream of being in a butcher's refrigerator, with slabs of meat hanging everywhere. He runs into his puppet friend Hubert Cumberdale (remember that name) who proceeds to scream at him. He wakes up and ignores the burning child in the oven. The most uncomfortable thing for me was seeing the nail go through the finger and a ghostly pale Salad passing out. That and the child murder. I definitely thought that so far, this was the most uncomfortable episode.
Episode three: Nettles.
Definitely a very sexually charged episode. Probably a little too sexual for me at least. Don't get me wrong I'm not a prude and I definitely won't say anything against people's sexual tastes and such but I have my limits. And seeing a green mutant...creature? I guess is what he is, I'm not sure. Seeing that talk about
Quote: "Enjoying the pleasures of nettles", rubbing them over his nipples causing him to lactate while an armless zombie watches him. The sexual overtone is really obvious and adds to the already uncomfortable tone that was already established in the first two episodes. That's about it. Weirdly sexual for some reason. Next episode.
Episode four: Cage.
Or as I like to call it, the episode starring my best friend's unborn demon child. God, I'm horrible but I swear that thing's gonna come out evil. This episode honestly seems like more of a reaction to being a parent or being in a lifetime commitment. I'm not sure, it just seems that way to me, probably because of my intense binge watching of Film Theorists and that's a part of it. This was actually the most underwhelming episode with it just being a little odd and not really upping the intensity of the series that, at this point, I was expecting.
Episode five: Picnic.
This was more surreal than anything else. I feel like this was taking less of an uncomfortable, disturbing direction, and takes more of a surreal, disturbing direction. I had no idea what was going on with this, it starts with Salad on the phone of which the cable is cut so he obviously isn't talking to anybody yet he's trying to organise a picnic. We then see him in a wedding dress. Has nothing to do with this episode so I won't dwell on it. Next, we see Salad at the picnic and a little girl approaches him and sits down, joining the picnic. Salad then says Quote: "I shall elect you as my new playmate" which gives off a certain sort of feel. The sort of feel where you see someone strange hanging out outside the primary school gates. You're not entirely too sure about what this person's intent is but you probably wouldn't let your kid be around them unsupervised y'know? Back to the episode, the girl starts to talk with a similar voice to our green protagonist and this, rightfully so, freaks him out and he retreats back to his house and hides in the corner. I'm not sure what angle this episode was going for, in fact, I'm not even sure it was going for an angle at all. It just seemed really surreal. Maybe the girl triggered a traumatic memory in his subconscious? I don't know. I did like this episode, even if it seemed a little lacking in a direction.
Episode six: Present.
This was by far, the most disgusting of the ten episodes of the series. Salad eats one of his friends, comes across the dirtiest toilet I've ever seen and proceeds to stick his hand down it, proclaiming there is enough water in it to wash his petticoat. He gets home and sees himself sat in a chair, staring at him disapprovingly. The version of Salad that is sat down speaks to the version of himself that has just walked in, calling him Jeremy Fisher, the friend previously eaten by Salad himself. We then see him actually speaking to Jeremy Fisher, who is now back as a finger puppet and no longer eaten. Salad then says Quote: "I never did get to sample the delights of your flavour" as he brings his hand up to...I guess re-eat Jeremy, there's a cut and we see Salad eating his own brain. It's fucking disgusting. I didn't like this one. It kept some of the strangeness that seemed to be coming out in the previous episode but went to a gross level with it. Maybe this has something to do with mental health and how your own "bad thoughts" eat at you. Either way, this was gross.
Episode seven: Shore Leave.
This episode is just a bit odd. Salad finds what he thinks to be his brother who is back from the great war on shore leave. The episode follows a fairly straightforward plot. He spends time with his brother, sends him back into the trenches after crying about having to say goodbye to his brother. We then see what I'm assuming is a flashback to Salad being a performer, singing We'll Meet Again, a song from the first world war which was meant to give the wives hope that their husbands would return safely. Salad then has a diva tantrum and glides off the stage. I make note of the gliding as he's also wearing the dress I mentioned from an earlier episode. People tend to say that brides "glide down the aisle" which I think is the point being referenced when Salad glides off the stage rather than walks. Either that or they just couldn't animate him walking. Overall this was a fairly run of the mill episode that was just kind of boring.
Episode eight: Cupboard.
This was a very interesting episode as it's the first episode where I realised that the animation had gotten better, Salad Fingers now has nails and it seems to follow the idea of domestic abuse. Roger (the radio) can get a "little uppity" when he hasn't had his "sustenance" maybe a metaphor for getting violent when he's not wasted? Roger then starts screaming leading to Salad hiding in his safety cupboard. He plays with his hands and is possibly reenacting something from memory, where he is being berated for having skinny long legs and therefore won't be sold something. Maybe this is something that Roger has said to him? The episode takes a gross turn when Salad finds a hair and runs across his eyeball. He adds this to his collection of hairs on the wall. We then see him in bed with Hubert Cumberdale, another of Salad's finger puppet friends and he just flicks the poor thing out of the bed and into the poo bucket, then gets angry at him for being messy. It turns out, however, that Salad is done with Rogers abusive behaviour and threatens to kick him out, only for Roger to demand that Salad cleans the house. Salad refuses. Roger repeatedly says "do it now" leading to Salad eating his hair collection and hiding in the safety cupboard. This has a very strong feel of domestic abuse and ends on a very sad note making it hard to not sympathise with this child murdering creature.
Episode nine: Letter.
The episode where Salad gives birth to...fucking something and names it Yvonne. I don't like this one simply because of that. Salad thinks he's about to die, gives birth Alien chest burst style and gives it the same name as my mother. He then washes a window with the baby after saying he can't take care of it because his health is deteriorating. He also writes a letter with his skinned finger saying he can't go to the war today because he still feels a bit shit. I don't know maybe I'm just bitter about the "baby" having the same name as my mum but I just didn't like it.
Episode ten: Birthday.
Definitely the most graphic and disturbing episode of them all. A horse from an earlier episode is brought back and brutally slaughtered by a weird doctor with claws for hands. That shit's not done off screen either, you seem this doctor hacking away at the horse and it's fucking crying. It's looking into the camera and crying. Salad then heads home to find his now dead zombie friend as a pile of bones, surrounded by other horses. Salad blames the horses for skinning his friend and kicks them out, only to find a table of extremely deformed versions of himself sat at a table and I don't know which of those things is scarier. There are two eating brains, one with a more disconnected mouth than the other, there's one eating, what I'm assuming to be a mushy brain, out of a cup which later smashes its fists on the table and screeches. It's mouth coming way out of its face giving it a very normal yet freakish look. Another one is just smashing its fist on the table, it seems to have been doing this for a while considering its hand is bloody and there are blood stains on the white table cloth. It has no jaw. The final one I won't be able to describe other than faceless. We never see its face throughout its screen time which an argument could be made saying that's why it's the scariest. A person's imagination can run away with possibilities more dramatic than what may actually be. By far this was the scariest of all the episodes.
So that's what I thought of the episodes separately, but how do I feel overall? I thought that this was a very good series. The animation got better over time, it got stranger over time and it definitely got creepier over time. Yes, some episodes didn't even hit the creepy mark but overall it built it up nicely. Another thing I loved about it was it was creative and it's own thing. It didn't go diving into a coherent backstory for the protagonist which fit for this sort of thing. It's pretty damn good. You can watch all the episodes on youtube, separately or all together. In total the run time is about an hour. Maybe if you want a decent theory on the subject then check out The Film Theorists video's on it. I wouldn't recommend showing this to any young children, especially episodes 2, 3, 6, 9 and 10.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how this series made you feel. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you enjoy this series then go and support its creator by checking out his Youtube Channel and other works.
I wanted to do a series, maybe it's not a film film but you can easily watch it all together and get an hours worth of footage in which you can see some sort of a storyline forming. I personally only saw a storyline which came from me intensely watching The Film Theorists theory on this series over and over again because I apparently have no life anymore if that's all I'm gonna fuckin' do. Side note, not bashing that channel, they're great love 'em go look at them if you've not already.
How am I going to talk about the series then? I have no idea, I could just do my overall thoughts on it or I could do thoughts on each episode and then talk about it overall. Probably going to do the latter. Fuck, I don't know shit. Ok, grab a brew and let's get into it.
Episode one: Spoons.
I remember the first time I ever saw this, I was in my year 9 R.E class and all we ever did that year was watch films and discuss the religious element in these films. Every film we watched, it was blatantly obvious with the religious themes eg Bruce Almighty but sometimes towards the end of class, if we'd covered everything we needed to, our teacher would let us fuck about on Youtube and that is where I was first introduced to our leafy green friend. I won't lie to you, I was disturbed. Watching this...thing on the interactive whiteboard run it's fingers over rusty spoons and kettles made me so uncomfortable. The background music and the soft, high-pitched voice only added to the discomfort. This feeling was definitely not shaken when I watched it again for notes. It was duller than it was before, but it was still there. Overall I thought this short episode was a bit creepy and definitely still uncomfortable.
Episode two: Friends.
I hated this episode. It took the uncomfortable feeling from the first episode and just dialled it up, but I did notice some things about Salad Fingers himself. He has hair on his fingers. I don't know why I thought that was important to note down but it was important. Maybe it's because it just seemed a little strange that a character known as Salad Fingers has hair on them, is the salad mouldy? I don't know like I said, I just thought it was important. Why have I said that this was the one dialled up the discomfort factor? There's a strange tonal shift in this episode. There's a moment in which Salad traps a child in the oven, seemingly innocently as he says that he is cooking a fish but can't reach it. Salad sticks a nail through his finger, tells us how he loves when the "red water" comes out, he then passes out and we see his dream of being in a butcher's refrigerator, with slabs of meat hanging everywhere. He runs into his puppet friend Hubert Cumberdale (remember that name) who proceeds to scream at him. He wakes up and ignores the burning child in the oven. The most uncomfortable thing for me was seeing the nail go through the finger and a ghostly pale Salad passing out. That and the child murder. I definitely thought that so far, this was the most uncomfortable episode.
Episode three: Nettles.
Definitely a very sexually charged episode. Probably a little too sexual for me at least. Don't get me wrong I'm not a prude and I definitely won't say anything against people's sexual tastes and such but I have my limits. And seeing a green mutant...creature? I guess is what he is, I'm not sure. Seeing that talk about
Quote: "Enjoying the pleasures of nettles", rubbing them over his nipples causing him to lactate while an armless zombie watches him. The sexual overtone is really obvious and adds to the already uncomfortable tone that was already established in the first two episodes. That's about it. Weirdly sexual for some reason. Next episode.
Episode four: Cage.
Or as I like to call it, the episode starring my best friend's unborn demon child. God, I'm horrible but I swear that thing's gonna come out evil. This episode honestly seems like more of a reaction to being a parent or being in a lifetime commitment. I'm not sure, it just seems that way to me, probably because of my intense binge watching of Film Theorists and that's a part of it. This was actually the most underwhelming episode with it just being a little odd and not really upping the intensity of the series that, at this point, I was expecting.
Episode five: Picnic.
This was more surreal than anything else. I feel like this was taking less of an uncomfortable, disturbing direction, and takes more of a surreal, disturbing direction. I had no idea what was going on with this, it starts with Salad on the phone of which the cable is cut so he obviously isn't talking to anybody yet he's trying to organise a picnic. We then see him in a wedding dress. Has nothing to do with this episode so I won't dwell on it. Next, we see Salad at the picnic and a little girl approaches him and sits down, joining the picnic. Salad then says Quote: "I shall elect you as my new playmate" which gives off a certain sort of feel. The sort of feel where you see someone strange hanging out outside the primary school gates. You're not entirely too sure about what this person's intent is but you probably wouldn't let your kid be around them unsupervised y'know? Back to the episode, the girl starts to talk with a similar voice to our green protagonist and this, rightfully so, freaks him out and he retreats back to his house and hides in the corner. I'm not sure what angle this episode was going for, in fact, I'm not even sure it was going for an angle at all. It just seemed really surreal. Maybe the girl triggered a traumatic memory in his subconscious? I don't know. I did like this episode, even if it seemed a little lacking in a direction.
Episode six: Present.
This was by far, the most disgusting of the ten episodes of the series. Salad eats one of his friends, comes across the dirtiest toilet I've ever seen and proceeds to stick his hand down it, proclaiming there is enough water in it to wash his petticoat. He gets home and sees himself sat in a chair, staring at him disapprovingly. The version of Salad that is sat down speaks to the version of himself that has just walked in, calling him Jeremy Fisher, the friend previously eaten by Salad himself. We then see him actually speaking to Jeremy Fisher, who is now back as a finger puppet and no longer eaten. Salad then says Quote: "I never did get to sample the delights of your flavour" as he brings his hand up to...I guess re-eat Jeremy, there's a cut and we see Salad eating his own brain. It's fucking disgusting. I didn't like this one. It kept some of the strangeness that seemed to be coming out in the previous episode but went to a gross level with it. Maybe this has something to do with mental health and how your own "bad thoughts" eat at you. Either way, this was gross.
Episode seven: Shore Leave.
This episode is just a bit odd. Salad finds what he thinks to be his brother who is back from the great war on shore leave. The episode follows a fairly straightforward plot. He spends time with his brother, sends him back into the trenches after crying about having to say goodbye to his brother. We then see what I'm assuming is a flashback to Salad being a performer, singing We'll Meet Again, a song from the first world war which was meant to give the wives hope that their husbands would return safely. Salad then has a diva tantrum and glides off the stage. I make note of the gliding as he's also wearing the dress I mentioned from an earlier episode. People tend to say that brides "glide down the aisle" which I think is the point being referenced when Salad glides off the stage rather than walks. Either that or they just couldn't animate him walking. Overall this was a fairly run of the mill episode that was just kind of boring.
Episode eight: Cupboard.
This was a very interesting episode as it's the first episode where I realised that the animation had gotten better, Salad Fingers now has nails and it seems to follow the idea of domestic abuse. Roger (the radio) can get a "little uppity" when he hasn't had his "sustenance" maybe a metaphor for getting violent when he's not wasted? Roger then starts screaming leading to Salad hiding in his safety cupboard. He plays with his hands and is possibly reenacting something from memory, where he is being berated for having skinny long legs and therefore won't be sold something. Maybe this is something that Roger has said to him? The episode takes a gross turn when Salad finds a hair and runs across his eyeball. He adds this to his collection of hairs on the wall. We then see him in bed with Hubert Cumberdale, another of Salad's finger puppet friends and he just flicks the poor thing out of the bed and into the poo bucket, then gets angry at him for being messy. It turns out, however, that Salad is done with Rogers abusive behaviour and threatens to kick him out, only for Roger to demand that Salad cleans the house. Salad refuses. Roger repeatedly says "do it now" leading to Salad eating his hair collection and hiding in the safety cupboard. This has a very strong feel of domestic abuse and ends on a very sad note making it hard to not sympathise with this child murdering creature.
Episode nine: Letter.
The episode where Salad gives birth to...fucking something and names it Yvonne. I don't like this one simply because of that. Salad thinks he's about to die, gives birth Alien chest burst style and gives it the same name as my mother. He then washes a window with the baby after saying he can't take care of it because his health is deteriorating. He also writes a letter with his skinned finger saying he can't go to the war today because he still feels a bit shit. I don't know maybe I'm just bitter about the "baby" having the same name as my mum but I just didn't like it.
Episode ten: Birthday.
Definitely the most graphic and disturbing episode of them all. A horse from an earlier episode is brought back and brutally slaughtered by a weird doctor with claws for hands. That shit's not done off screen either, you seem this doctor hacking away at the horse and it's fucking crying. It's looking into the camera and crying. Salad then heads home to find his now dead zombie friend as a pile of bones, surrounded by other horses. Salad blames the horses for skinning his friend and kicks them out, only to find a table of extremely deformed versions of himself sat at a table and I don't know which of those things is scarier. There are two eating brains, one with a more disconnected mouth than the other, there's one eating, what I'm assuming to be a mushy brain, out of a cup which later smashes its fists on the table and screeches. It's mouth coming way out of its face giving it a very normal yet freakish look. Another one is just smashing its fist on the table, it seems to have been doing this for a while considering its hand is bloody and there are blood stains on the white table cloth. It has no jaw. The final one I won't be able to describe other than faceless. We never see its face throughout its screen time which an argument could be made saying that's why it's the scariest. A person's imagination can run away with possibilities more dramatic than what may actually be. By far this was the scariest of all the episodes.
So that's what I thought of the episodes separately, but how do I feel overall? I thought that this was a very good series. The animation got better over time, it got stranger over time and it definitely got creepier over time. Yes, some episodes didn't even hit the creepy mark but overall it built it up nicely. Another thing I loved about it was it was creative and it's own thing. It didn't go diving into a coherent backstory for the protagonist which fit for this sort of thing. It's pretty damn good. You can watch all the episodes on youtube, separately or all together. In total the run time is about an hour. Maybe if you want a decent theory on the subject then check out The Film Theorists video's on it. I wouldn't recommend showing this to any young children, especially episodes 2, 3, 6, 9 and 10.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how this series made you feel. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you enjoy this series then go and support its creator by checking out his Youtube Channel and other works.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)