More China Beach
Aug. 17th, 2014 07:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixieHaving watched all 17 episodes of season two in three days, I can say with some authority that this is actually not the best show to binge-watch. One, it's depressing. Soooo depressing. I gotta have some time to process and feel things and look at internet cat memes for a while. Two, the series is very fond of Lingering Gutpunching Visuals, like Beckett, Mai, and her son walking off together toward a backlit mountain with a piece of fence that just so happens to look like a cross in the foreground at the end of "Promised Land," or Colleen dancing with her father outside the bar in "The World Part 1," or McMurphy's big hazel eyes filled with tears in what seems like every episode. They lose some of their effect when seen one right after the other.
(Especially McMurphy's tears. I get it, she cares. Too much at times. Could we maybe find a different way of showing that?)
That said, I'm pretty sure just remembering that scene between McMurphy and her father will make me sniffly for some time to come. That whole two-parter was just...damn. I don't have any words, just an immense amount of admiration. Wow.
Other things about this season:
Bye bye, Cherry. I was never your biggest fan, but I'm somewhat sorry to see you go. I'm also sorry that that cheesy montage ended the episode where you died.
Beckett/Mai came out of nowhere, but I liked it when it arrived. The sweetness is a needed counterpoint to much of the rest of the show. And I liked her gentle turning down of his lack of proposal, how she schooled him on unconscious American GI arrogance, and how she gets to be a fully developed character with her own motivations rather than an object to further Beckett's story.
Things I never expected to feel: Genuine sympathy for Dr. Richard. But his sobbing as he told the villagers that he'd studied fallopian tubes, not bubonic plague, won me over. Everything with him and the villagers was nicely done.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Wayloo! Thank God she's gone. Every scene with her annoyed me, with the possible exception of tap dancing and drinking with Colleen in "Twilight."
Ooooh, Natch, you are a horrible person! You made McMurphy cry! Hulk smash!
I enjoy how prominent the Tennessee state flag is in the hospital. Someone on staff must have TN connections.
60s music in general doesn't do much for me, but I like that the use of it keeps the 80s music to a minimum, because when the instrumental soundtrack takes over, ooooof, the 80s synthesizerness of it, lordy.
In addition to yelling at the composer, I also want to yell at the lighting designer to buy a damn light bulb. Half the time, indoor scenes are so darkly lit I can barely tell who's in them.
Everything about both parts of "The World" kills me, like I said, but aside from McMurphy dancing on her father's feet, dancing with the vet in the wheelchair, breaking down at her father's grave, obviously delighting in waking up in her old bed, saving her father's life in the hospital (temporarily), and a million other things, the ending of the second part got me the most. She'd told Jan that when she saw the 510th from the air when she left for leave, it looked exactly the same as it did 16 months earlier when she arrived, despite everything she'd done, and you could see her thinking the same thing as she came back. And it did look like it had in many, many other shots throughout the series. I liked that she didn't immediately get to work, but spent a couple minutes wandering toward the hospital with a look of horror on her face, like, "Good God, where am I? What have I done?" Then she falls right back into the rhythm.
...And, I suspect, next season will crawl deep, deep into a bottle to cope.
Given my last post on the subject, as you might imagine, "All About E.E.V." made me facepalm a lot as McMurphy and Richard tried and ultimately failed to have a fling because there was no place to do it. (Although I did enjoy his utter bug-eyed astonishment when she finally took him up on his proposition. Heh.) But I have to admit, they almost convinced me with Richard's response to McMurphy's declaration that it wasn't going to work: "I don't know. Has possibilities." Something about Robert Picardo's hopeful delivery of that line made me believe, just for a minute.
Annnnd then a few episodes later he drugged her drink, stripped her naked, put a bathing suit on her, left her unconscious on the beach, and then briefly attempted to gaslight her into thinking they'd gotten married, all under a guise of getting her to sleep when she hadn't for days, and my belief quickly evaporated. Alas, McMurphy did not press charges.
No comment on the very, very bizarre scene with them and Wayloo by the chopper at the beginning of "The World." Just, what. What even was that? Is there fallout next season? Would I prefer it be completely forgotten? At this point, I have no idea.
(I have to admit, though, that part of me can kind of see the two of them finishing up their tours and then bickering off into the sunset together as part of Doctors Without Borders or a similar organization. Not that that would ever be more than a fantasy. Even if I weren't somewhat spoiled for how things turn out, I can tell from what I've seen so far that this is hardly a show that gives out happy endings.)
(Especially McMurphy's tears. I get it, she cares. Too much at times. Could we maybe find a different way of showing that?)
That said, I'm pretty sure just remembering that scene between McMurphy and her father will make me sniffly for some time to come. That whole two-parter was just...damn. I don't have any words, just an immense amount of admiration. Wow.
Other things about this season:
Bye bye, Cherry. I was never your biggest fan, but I'm somewhat sorry to see you go. I'm also sorry that that cheesy montage ended the episode where you died.
Beckett/Mai came out of nowhere, but I liked it when it arrived. The sweetness is a needed counterpoint to much of the rest of the show. And I liked her gentle turning down of his lack of proposal, how she schooled him on unconscious American GI arrogance, and how she gets to be a fully developed character with her own motivations rather than an object to further Beckett's story.
Things I never expected to feel: Genuine sympathy for Dr. Richard. But his sobbing as he told the villagers that he'd studied fallopian tubes, not bubonic plague, won me over. Everything with him and the villagers was nicely done.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Wayloo! Thank God she's gone. Every scene with her annoyed me, with the possible exception of tap dancing and drinking with Colleen in "Twilight."
Ooooh, Natch, you are a horrible person! You made McMurphy cry! Hulk smash!
I enjoy how prominent the Tennessee state flag is in the hospital. Someone on staff must have TN connections.
60s music in general doesn't do much for me, but I like that the use of it keeps the 80s music to a minimum, because when the instrumental soundtrack takes over, ooooof, the 80s synthesizerness of it, lordy.
In addition to yelling at the composer, I also want to yell at the lighting designer to buy a damn light bulb. Half the time, indoor scenes are so darkly lit I can barely tell who's in them.
Everything about both parts of "The World" kills me, like I said, but aside from McMurphy dancing on her father's feet, dancing with the vet in the wheelchair, breaking down at her father's grave, obviously delighting in waking up in her old bed, saving her father's life in the hospital (temporarily), and a million other things, the ending of the second part got me the most. She'd told Jan that when she saw the 510th from the air when she left for leave, it looked exactly the same as it did 16 months earlier when she arrived, despite everything she'd done, and you could see her thinking the same thing as she came back. And it did look like it had in many, many other shots throughout the series. I liked that she didn't immediately get to work, but spent a couple minutes wandering toward the hospital with a look of horror on her face, like, "Good God, where am I? What have I done?" Then she falls right back into the rhythm.
...And, I suspect, next season will crawl deep, deep into a bottle to cope.
Given my last post on the subject, as you might imagine, "All About E.E.V." made me facepalm a lot as McMurphy and Richard tried and ultimately failed to have a fling because there was no place to do it. (Although I did enjoy his utter bug-eyed astonishment when she finally took him up on his proposition. Heh.) But I have to admit, they almost convinced me with Richard's response to McMurphy's declaration that it wasn't going to work: "I don't know. Has possibilities." Something about Robert Picardo's hopeful delivery of that line made me believe, just for a minute.
Annnnd then a few episodes later he drugged her drink, stripped her naked, put a bathing suit on her, left her unconscious on the beach, and then briefly attempted to gaslight her into thinking they'd gotten married, all under a guise of getting her to sleep when she hadn't for days, and my belief quickly evaporated. Alas, McMurphy did not press charges.
No comment on the very, very bizarre scene with them and Wayloo by the chopper at the beginning of "The World." Just, what. What even was that? Is there fallout next season? Would I prefer it be completely forgotten? At this point, I have no idea.
(I have to admit, though, that part of me can kind of see the two of them finishing up their tours and then bickering off into the sunset together as part of Doctors Without Borders or a similar organization. Not that that would ever be more than a fantasy. Even if I weren't somewhat spoiled for how things turn out, I can tell from what I've seen so far that this is hardly a show that gives out happy endings.)
