Idk the flatmate kind of felt like a deliberate joke to me til the last episode, like he’s supposed to be a parody of your typically flimsy black character that gets no development and has no life of their own outside their few interactions with the protagonist.
― let them microwave their rice (gyac), Monday, 3 August 2020 15:17 (three years ago) link
Like when shes talking about crafting or something and thinking “that sounds just like him!” Think it might be the only offscreen mention he gets all series.
― let them microwave their rice (gyac), Monday, 3 August 2020 15:19 (three years ago) link
Yeah there's the scene where there's the house party and he's just in the bedroom on his laptop with his headphones in with people barging in on him, which is played for lols at the time but you later realise there's more to it.
― Matt DC, Monday, 3 August 2020 15:23 (three years ago) link
That's what I liked about him, he was an inversion of the token black friend character
― flamboyant goon tie included, Monday, 3 August 2020 15:33 (three years ago) link
Also: the clipped Received Pronunciation with which Suzy delivers that "rational taxonomy" line, wow. I loved how it seemed as if any time Bella seemed to express a desire to speak directly to Suzy, her other associates were discouraging her. Bella saw Suzy as an ally but everybody else knew she was a businesswoman.
I wish I had the words to express this complicated (not negative) feeling I had about the politic of the series as a whole, that the path toward trauma recovery seemed like Landmark-style "new possibilities" methodology, building resilience, etc.
― flamboyant goon tie included, Monday, 3 August 2020 15:40 (three years ago) link
I've seen a few ppl who had been expecting ~twist~ the flatmate to be the rapist, although it's really not that kind of show. It was kind of obvious to us who it was likely to be, right, although I'd probably need to watch ep1 again to be not distracted by the Simon storyline? (which I agree seemed quite focal then... not)
― kinder, Monday, 3 August 2020 17:30 (three years ago) link
Yeah it was obvious who it was but not who that guy was, as the audience we get the full picture that she herself is just wading through.
― let them microwave their rice (gyac), Monday, 3 August 2020 17:46 (three years ago) link
Susy was the one character who felt maybe a little too cartoonish for me, mostly because her phrasing and supercilious facial expressions seemed lifted directly from Alan Johnson in Peep Show. But we see her through Arabella's eyes so maybe that's OK.
― Matt DC, Monday, 3 August 2020 18:03 (three years ago) link
Yeah in a way it made her less frightening.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Monday, 3 August 2020 18:19 (three years ago) link
I don't know - based on my interaction with aspiring actors, I think Suzy is pretty spot on.
― Darin, Monday, 3 August 2020 19:43 (three years ago) link
Wait a sec - sorry I'm mixing up characters.
i am three episodes short of finishing this so am avoiding reading the thread but this article touches on some of the larger themes I've run into so far:https://www.thecut.com/2020/08/sarah-schulman-conflict-is-not-abuse.html
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Monday, 3 August 2020 20:21 (three years ago) link
Oh yeah, I definitely didn't mean Terri, she's brilliant.
― Matt DC, Monday, 3 August 2020 20:26 (three years ago) link
xp to FGTI a new, agented author would always be discouraged from independently getting in touch with their powerful publisher by their agency while technically in breach of their contract, and British literary culture is very funny about directness. If a writer has burned through her signature advance, it is especially infra dig to ask one’s publisher to release more funds, and the richer the publisher the more offended they’ll be.
Everyone in British publishing knows a Susy Henny and it was hilarious to watch UK writers on Twitter fully cringe when faced with the character.
― santa clause four (suzy), Monday, 3 August 2020 21:30 (three years ago) link
one notable thing in the school flashback episode was how well the young actress channelled the older version of Terri. Quite remarkable. I think it was just about the only thing I liked in that episode, tbh, although I did appreciate the series on the whole.
― Gerneten-flüken cake (jed_), Monday, 3 August 2020 21:43 (three years ago) link
You didn’t appreciate Babycakes on the soundtrack?
― let them microwave their rice (gyac), Monday, 3 August 2020 22:13 (three years ago) link
oh yes! haha.
― Gerneten-flüken cake (jed_), Monday, 3 August 2020 22:18 (three years ago) link
@ suzy ahh ok that makes sense. Yeah I couldn't read if the conversation about houseplants that preceded Bella getting dropped was ingenuous or not-- if Suzy was "having a moment" before letting her go, or if her decision to let Suzy go was strictly to try and cover up the fact that Suzy had kept Zain on. Agree with Tracer Hand that it's likely all of these things put together.
― flamboyant goon tie included, Monday, 3 August 2020 22:54 (three years ago) link
just finished the last episode and bawled through most of it. this is an immensely rare thing Coel has made, utterly devastating and terribly clever, funny and painful and sharp and complicated and totally unique. I'm really kind of in awe. So I guess now I'll read the thread and some of her interviews.
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Tuesday, 4 August 2020 04:49 (three years ago) link
Morning, I wrote this https://t.co/2q5K7ZWzxJ— Bolu Babalola (@BeeBabs) August 4, 2020
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 4 August 2020 16:30 (three years ago) link
Ignoring what is clearly a cry for help, Biagio has rejected Arabella’s impulsive visit and manipulatively locked her out of his home.
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Tuesday, 4 August 2020 16:39 (three years ago) link
that episode just filled me with dread, start to finish.
― Gerneten-flüken cake (jed_), Tuesday, 4 August 2020 16:42 (three years ago) link
Watching it tonight, in for a treat :)
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 4 August 2020 16:46 (three years ago) link
i think it's pretty reasonable to describe that episode as an emotional breakdown for Bella moreso than a cry for help.
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Tuesday, 4 August 2020 16:50 (three years ago) link
When she sheepishly states that she has left her passport in his apartment, he wordlessly, coldly slides it to her beneath his door. It’s a moment that slices into sinews. In response, she jolts, physically rocked by his rejection.“Wow,” she says, in a moment of quiet, stunned realisation. And, as if this is not enough, she chases it with “Rah.”
“Wow,” she says, in a moment of quiet, stunned realisation. And, as if this is not enough, she chases it with “Rah.”
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Tuesday, 4 August 2020 18:30 (three years ago) link
Your invert the sexes point makes no sense when the show has done its best to show everyone’s side, even the rapist’s. Biagio is a prick too, he blamed Bella for her rape!
― let them microwave their rice (gyac), Tuesday, 4 August 2020 18:41 (three years ago) link
He also fucked her when she was off her face and he was stone cold sober.
That said I'm not surprised in the slightest that he kicked her out of his flat.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 4 August 2020 18:43 (three years ago) link
Oh yeah totally, he’d been ghosting her for ages!
― let them microwave their rice (gyac), Tuesday, 4 August 2020 18:47 (three years ago) link
She was imagining this grand love story where none existed because it suited her to believe that, because nothing else was going right, because it was Italy, because he came through and delivered evidence, and she latched onto that like it was some highly significant token of his love, when from the very beginning we've seen that he doesn't really give a shit. It's true that he called... what, a couple of times? I guess when he was bored or lonely himself. But that was it. And yes everything ulysses says - I was shouting at the TV, like 'OF COURSE THIS HAPPENED! JESUS!!!'
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 4 August 2020 18:54 (three years ago) link
When you see how she deceived herself about her father as a child...
― let them microwave their rice (gyac), Tuesday, 4 August 2020 18:55 (three years ago) link
He was calling her repeatedly in earlier episodes, though. She was initially totally ghosting him. All of which makes me keener to remember what they were arguing about right at the start of Episode 1.
― mike t-diva, Tuesday, 4 August 2020 19:34 (three years ago) link
Your invert the sexes point makes no sense when the show has done its best to show everyone’s side, even the rapist’s.
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Tuesday, 4 August 2020 20:02 (three years ago) link
Bf pointed out last night that “James, the rapist” existed entirely as fantasy— Bella never actually positively identified him, except in fantasy. His identity, personality characteristics (and even his specific culpability) are all projections. I felt the point was that Bella played out a few scenarios and then opted, instead, to stop trying to find him— going to Ego Death every night was not an act of healing.
I didn’t think Biagio/Bella was a gender-role inversion. The couple just had a different dynamic— Biagio as low-key nice guy with a sober-predatory edge and an outdated attitude toward rape culpability— I remembered being told by Italian friends that culturally they generally have an “it’s your own fault” attitude toward over-consumption and it was normal practice to abandon a male friend if they got too fucked up in public— and Bella believing they had a major connection that was part her own continental fantasy, part escape-from-trauma, and part entitled fixation.
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 4 August 2020 21:44 (three years ago) link
Can't go byA man fromOstia
Hey Ninetto
Remember thatDreamWe talked aboutItSo many times
― Gerneten-flüken cake (jed_), Tuesday, 4 August 2020 21:56 (three years ago) link
I kept thinking about that mainly because I didn't know exactly where Ostia was and that was my sole Ostia reference.
― Gerneten-flüken cake (jed_), Tuesday, 4 August 2020 21:57 (three years ago) link
Still waiting for some context on brain grass and long long eye gas over here
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 4 August 2020 22:10 (three years ago) link
Yes, it was not even mentioned.
― Gerneten-flüken cake (jed_), Tuesday, 4 August 2020 22:13 (three years ago) link
Alphie did you finish this in the end?
― let them microwave their rice (gyac), Tuesday, 11 August 2020 11:06 (three years ago) link
Yes I finished it last saturday at like 1am or something. Have scrambled thoughts I might put down sometime.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 11 August 2020 11:09 (three years ago) link
This just ended in the U.S. last night. Amazing final episode.
― jaymc, Tuesday, 25 August 2020 17:39 (three years ago) link
yeah, it fucked me up and i think about it fairly regularly.
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Tuesday, 25 August 2020 17:43 (three years ago) link
far and away the best show i've seen this year. i love how deeply we got to know arabella, and how the show explained her behavior but never apologized for it. and i appreciated how, after all the things she tried to cope with her assaults, the thing that finally put her on the right path was good old-fashioned talk therapy.
also the soundtrack was cool as fuck.
― i got a homogenic björk wine farmer permabanned (voodoo chili), Wednesday, 16 September 2020 14:06 (three years ago) link
lol as someone for whom talk therapy has helped overall, that was not the conclusion I took from that.
― scampo italiano (gyac), Wednesday, 16 September 2020 14:24 (three years ago) link
idk, bella a clear attitude/outlook attitude shift after that moment that allowed her to step outside herself a bit and be more open with the poeple in her life.
― i got a homogenic björk wine farmer permabanned (voodoo chili), Wednesday, 16 September 2020 14:31 (three years ago) link
It's much more complex and muddier than that, I mean one of things that puts her on the path to getting her book written is literally sitting down and talking about the writing process with her rapist and I don't think many people would recommend that as an approach.
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 16 September 2020 14:34 (three years ago) link
Show is fairly explicit that writing through it is a big part of thinking and rethinking and processing it all.
― scampo italiano (gyac), Wednesday, 16 September 2020 14:35 (three years ago) link
xp oh for sure, the show definitely doesn't posit anything as a panacea, and all three main characters process their assaults and resulting traumas in healthy and (mostly) unhealthy ways. i think i just really liked that scene and how coel's performance shifted afterward.
― i got a homogenic björk wine farmer permabanned (voodoo chili), Wednesday, 16 September 2020 14:38 (three years ago) link
Yeah it's unclear how much of even the penultimate episode actually happens or whether it's part of her own writing process.
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 16 September 2020 14:39 (three years ago) link
I think I liked that it resisted any kind of takeaway. There was some painful processing of experience, but ultimately stuff got done -- that she needed her rapist to take away her writing block I realise quite a brutal expression of what it is to do stuff, sometimes -- life goes on and we keep muddling through the disaster.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 16 September 2020 14:48 (three years ago) link
i think this show will come to define its year which is a hell of a feat for something filmed prior to and without mentioning covid.
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Wednesday, 16 September 2020 15:02 (three years ago) link
Finished this a couple of nights back. Absolutely astonishing really and I can't stop thinking about it, getting flashes of scenes and clips of dialogue wafting up from my subconscious. Current obsessions are the family scene at Arabella's mums, which was so beautiful and heartbreakingly real (she comes out of the bedroom, having discussed her dad's infidelities *and* her rape and not only cuddles her dad but serves him food. I broke down at that point) and the final jump-shot of the roof garden. That could have been a clumsy rendering of the growth metaphor but it totally worked (I love how she undercuts her own metaphor with the whole scene in Susy's office, it's like, 'yes, I know my metaphor is cheesy and look, in other hands, it's totally wanky, what you going to do?').
I've been thinking about the birdsong that presages her visions in the final episode. It sounds vaguely mechanical but also *could* be a nightingale at a push. I've been pondering the significance but can't get much beyond it being a Keats reference (Lethe-wards had sunk or half in love with easeful death). Anyway, what a fucking triumph.
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Wednesday, 27 January 2021 09:54 (three years ago) link
Finally got around to this, finished it last night, and nothing to add to the superlatives up thread except more superlatives. It does so many things so well, and goes deep on so many different themes and ideas. Even without more time to process it, I can confidently call it one of the best things I’ve ever seen on TV.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Friday, 2 July 2021 19:20 (two years ago) link
Finally watched this. As good as billed, if not better.
I think it's one of things, now I've seen it, I'm gonna be watching most other shows and thinking "well it's good, but it's not i may destroy you good"
― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 22 September 2022 10:40 (one year ago) link
I watched this over the summer and completely agree.
better than billed and it was billed as very very good.
its astonishing that it came out of relatively nowhere, Michela Coel deserves every accolade she got this.
― my opinionation (Hamildan), Thursday, 22 September 2022 14:43 (one year ago) link
Better than Chewing gum so wonder where she will go next.Hope we get to find out before too long.
― Stevolende, Thursday, 22 September 2022 14:58 (one year ago) link