Josh writes:
OK, do we all watch Outrageous Fortune here? About last night's episode...
Can someone explain this to me? Van goes, in the space of half an episode, from A Bit Thick to Genuinely Mentally Damaged, fucks up his life in a fit of hysterical paranoia and contributes directly to the death of his girlfriend, and yet the overall feeling I got from the episode was that we should be feeling sorry for him? Or at least, no sympathy seemed to be on offer for Aurora, who's only sins were to try to please all the people all the time and fail to penetrate the heavy wall of Retarded Jealousy that had magically materialised around Van, getting nothing but a "stop messing with my son" from Cheryl. The "Goodnight Kiwi Music" playing at the end was a nice touch, but only really served to make Aurora's death all about Van, as opposed to, say, Aurora.
Was that bad writing? Am I just being overly critical, possibly suffering Chasing Amy flashbacks or something?
And where are they going with this, if anywhere? Is it meant to be telling us something about the nature of Cheryl's relationship to Van (Bad Son in season 1, Good Son in season 2, Mummy's "Special" Little Boy in season 3)? The trailer for next week's episode seemed to indicate that the Wests are in full-on righteous indignation mode at being refused access to the funeral of the woman their son killed, rather than, say feeling a bit guilty or contrite or anything. We'll see.
3 comments:
No, you're entirely right - I thought it was a bit shit for precisely those reasons, too.
I do think it was a weak episode for much that reason; I really liked Aurora, but her death was so Van-focussed that it removed a lot of the gravitas from the fact that this regular character had just died.
I don't think this was done intentionally: I think the intent was to show the flaws of Van (basically: that he's too stupid to exist in human society) and Cheryl (myopic loyalty to her family), while also showing that Aurora was, really, in the right (or at least, not in the wrong - gray areas and all that, you know...).
That having been said, while I think this was the intent, I don't think it was communicated very well. Be it the writing or the direction, the episode did seem to negate the idea that Van should be seen in a bad light.
I think that over the next few weeks when he (from the looks of the preview) starts fucking up his relationship with Munter (who is the only honestly likable character at the moment) it will become apparent that he's meant to be seen as less than an innocent "special boy" - or at least, that it's not meant to all be about him.
I hate to be the one to bring this up... What the hell I'm taking perverse plesure in this.
Now, I know that you have to have seen at least some of the scream/scary movies (I can't remember which one they all blend together in my mind). What I remember is that one of the rules is that sexual females get punished. Aurora likes sex too much so they kill her. Sheryl keeps losing her play things to prison. Barbie doll older sister is being punished by falling in love with a guy who wont have sex with her.
The main reason why I thik porn producing little gifted child is being spared is that techncally shes a victim of a manipulative older man.
liver
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