“Big Fish” on Broadway: So Much Promise, Not Enough Spark
But go on we must. I enjoyed the show a good deal, especially for an early preview. but, throughout the evening, I had a nagging sensation that something was wrong. The cast? Mostly solid, with great turns by Butz and Kate Baldwin. The book? A decent adaptation, with some slow sections but overall good storytelling. And despite most other critics’ opinions, the heavily digitized set didn’t bother me (I was probably too far back to be bothered to much by it. I could hear the sound of rocks skipping in the digital creek downstage, but couldn’t see it). I realized what was left – the score. Aside from the lovely “Daffodils” and the wonderful, spot-on “Fight the Dragons”, the score was the problem, uncharacteristically weak and unmemorable from Andrew Lippa, who gave us “The Wild Party”. It really feels like something is missing, because the most important part of a musical is the score! Without consistent, kick-ass music, “Big Fish” lacks the booming heart-racing fun that it should be providing with this amazing source material.
Furthermore, the directing decisions seem off. This should be Edward’s story (stories!), but it feels rushed and impersonal sometimes, preventing the audience from connecting with Edward and being on his side as much as we should. This could be due to the lack of exciting and well-executed ensemble numbers, but it’s due to the direction as well. What I saw was not a cohesive, tight production. Hopefully by opening it was, but that would require the types of changes not normally made during previews.
Kate Baldwin is stellar as Edward’s headstrong sweetheart from their teenage years up until his dying day, always his biggest supporter and believer. Bobby Steggert does what he can with an underdeveloped role as Edward’s grown son, Will. I blame the book for this one, because Billy Crudup in the movie version had the same problems. My favorite surprise was newcomer Ryan Andes as the good-natured Giant, with great stage presence and command of his role. I look forward to what he does next. Norbert does his very best to sell the crap out of what he’s working with. It’s always a privilege to see him onstage, and his performance here is extraordinary, even if he’s forced to work much harder than he should be. No other performer could do with this role what Norbert does, or elevate the material as much as he does. Lots of the flaws seem to disappear because of him, and as a result I really did enjoy this show. I can recommend seeing this show because of a handful of wonderful moments, but mostly because of him.
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Goodbye to The Good Place (Really Bestbye to the Best Place)
Hello, my little chili babies. It’s been almost a week since the 104% perfect finale of The Good Place, and I’m still crying so let’s talk it out. Although everything to say about it has already been said, it doesn’t feel right to not have something about it on my website for posterity. I mean I have a whole thing on the finale of How I Met Your Mother, which was super disappointing, so having that and not anything on the best TV show finale of all time would be point-losing nonsense. If you want to read my writing about my favorite show where I try to sound smart, click here to read my recent article for Tenderly Mag on Medium. If you’re cool with nonsense dribbled out in mostly recap form while I cried for the 1000th time in 5 days, then go ahead – whenever you’re ready. (Hot tip: You are only ready if you have watched every episode of the show.)
If you know me, or you watch television, or you have taste, you know that The Good Place is the best show ever. There isn’t one line that isn’t great, in four seasons. I mean I love lots of TV and have lots of favorites but man alive, even Friends has entire episodes I would cut. TGP was as tight as a drum, with every line, action, even every costume flawlessly committed to telling a coherent full story. I love everyone involved with this show for making it, from each writer (especially Megan Amram and her puns) to Marc Evan Jackson for the podcast (it’s so good and where I got a lot of the inside treats to come) to David Niednagel for the ridiculous special effects to Kirston Mann for the costumes (I agree about the stripes messaging, Marc) to Gay Perello for the amazing props (will never get over Jason’s first philosophy assignment, where he handwrote it and said “By Jason Mendoza, Age 27. Perfection). The cast is uniformly excellent, some of the best acting ever ever ever ever done. (“Acting is reacting. And reacting is pre-acting. And pre-acting, well that’s just being.”) And of course, creator Mike Schur, who might have a lot of annoying ideas about veganism, but he is a gd genius.
Since the pilot, anyone who tried to predict what would happen on this show has looked like a fool LIKE A FOOL. This most unpredictable show, lauded for how it solved in one episode or less what most programs would focus on for an entire season, always kept us on our toes. It felt appropriate that the finale would still be exciting and overwhelmingly emotional and brilliant but not entirely surprising, wrapping up everyone’s story, remarkably, in a way that was, only in hindsight, clear from the beginning. (“Is there a question?” “Don’t you think that’s remarkable?”) Even though the show was constantly surprising, they told us from the start what the end would hold for our heroes, if you paid attention. They each had to conquer their biggest flaws, and once they really and fully did, they would be ready to end this part of their existence. And often, doing so made them come full circle to the versions of themselves they pretended to be, whether on earth or in neighborhood 12358W.
I want to talk about each of my friends one by one.
Let’s start with Jason, since the episode does. After 2,242 Bearimys since we last saw him, Jason decides that his time in The Good Place has come to an end. At first I paraphrased Michael in the season 2 reboot montage and exclaimed, “Jason finds peace first? Jason?! Oh, this one hurts.” It’s no secret that Jason Mendoza (“that’s my boy right there!”) is my favorite character (well everyone is my favorite but I love that goofball so much). He is so dumb and sweet and surprisingly wise and so pure. The kids describe too many things nowadays as being ‘pure’ and it’s getting overused but really it is best used for Jason. I love that my boy is so pure so his is the shortest journey to finding inner peace. It makes sense that he would be the first of Team Cockroach to have that realization of tranquility in your soul that you are ready to be at one with the universe, or whatever you think happens when you walk through the door.
When Janet realizes what Jason needs to talk about, after he makes dinner for her the first time, that seems like the proper starting point for crying during this episode, but that assumes you haven’t been crying since the moment it began, or really since you started gearing up for it the week before. The moment that marked my transition from teary-eyed to heaving bawling was when they showed him playing Madden with Donkey Doug. Donkey Doug was the first new person we saw who had made it through the new system, and that, that broke me. Oh dip Donkey Doug! (“Oh dip…you’re Donkey Doug!” (that’s a deep cut of my favorite blooper ever from the blooper reel of season 3.)) The best thing about this show was on full display – its perfect blend of heavy moments and deep thoughts with ridiculous comedy. Like Jason’s comment that his goodbye party would play EDM all night and Eleanor saying “well now I’m bummed about two things.” My favorite Eleanor moment during Jason’s section was obviously the jalapeno poppers bit (“what is a jalapeno? Also what is a popper? Also what is jalapeno poppers?” will inexplicably forever be my most quoted line from this show): Jason explains that he knows this is his time, because he realized the air inside his lungs was the same as the air outside his body – the same sort of peaceful feeling as when you bite into a jalapeno popper you think will be too hot but then it’s actually the perfect temperature. Eleanor immediately confirms she knows that feeling, as she would, because she is fellow trash. I always loved their connection as two former trashbags with similar experiences, and I’m glad they had another such moment in the finale.
Through seemingly throwaway lines, the writers pack in so much information. When we see Doug Forcett overdoing it on fried chicken (Doug Forcett got in!!), Chidi says “good thing you chose your young body!” So we know that everyone we see from here on didn’t necessarily die at whatever age we see them; you get to pick what age you’ll spend eternity as. Noice. Smort. And when Pillboi (I cried so hard when we saw that Pillboi made it; I love him so much) in his toast that includes the phrase “Caspers the Ghost”, the best pluralization ever, says that Jason is his hero, it makes me believe that everyone who makes it to the Good Place learns about the people responsible for this new system. Thinking about how Doug and Pillboi know that Jason is responsible for saving every soul in the universe, and how Uzo knows that about Chidi, and how Donna knows that about Eleanor, and how Tahani’s parents know, it wrecks me.
But nothing wrecks me more than (well every minute of this finale) when Janet and Michael talk about being sad that Jason’s leaving, because FRIENDSHIP! THE REASON IS FRIENDSHIP! Ever since “Janet and Michael” in season 2, their relationship has been my favorite (they are all my favorite relationships but come on). It’s so special to watch the only two non-humans on Team Cockroach help each other grow during all these crazy experiences.
The most important part of Jason’s section (well, his first) is Janet explaining that she doesn’t experience time like humans do, and that she is living all times at once. We need to hear this so we’re not depressed at the thought of everyone eventually leaving Janet, thinking about how one day all her friends will be gone. For her, they aren’t. WE NEED THIS.
I was a little bummed that we said goodbye to Jason so quickly, but oh dip! We didn’t! The second half surprise that, since he lost the necklace he made for Janet, he looked for it (it was in the other pocket, obviously) and then waited until she came back to the forest – for thousands of years – was the best surprise. He passed all that time pretty chill, just letting his mind wander and thinking about the universe. LIKE A MONK. Jason, having started the show pretending to be Jianyu the monk, ending up monking it up harder than any monk ever has. That’s the kind of full circle Amy Sherman Palladino wishes she could write. So beautiful. Pretending to be Jianyu was torture for Jason, since he had to control his impulsivity, so his time in the forest proved that he had conquered all his worst traits and then some. He was complete, and he was ready.
But not before the greatest line ever on this show full of the best lines ever: Jason says goodbye again to Janet, and runs through the door shouting, “Chidi, wait up!” after Chidi had gone through (more on that soon). It’s so adorably dumb and perfectly Jason – he still sort of has no clue what’s going on, but it also shows how sweet and innocent he is and how much he cares about his friends: no matter what happened to his friend, or what form his essence is in, he’s coming to hang.
Fun facts:
- The passing yards Jason achieved in his perfect game of Madden totaled 12358.
- The actor playing Doug Forcett isn’t really an actor, he’s a comedy writer. So he didn’t know not to really eat all the food he was stuffing in his face take after take. He threw up after filming his scene.
- The subtitles have no idea what Pillboi says at the end of his toast: He calls Jason his ‘Gardner Minshew’, the footballer who replaced Nick Foles after he broke his clavicle (‘FOOOOOOOOOLES!’). This show taught me so much about literally every subject.
“It is I, Tahani.”
Next, 323.6 Bearimys later, Tahani has become an expert woodworker (and is wearing overalls, incredible), along with completing nearly 10,000 other afterlife goals she set. We need to look at her list:
- Land a triple axel (made me realize I would TOTES take up figure skating in the Good Place. You can’t break your head!)
- Solve the Poincare conjecture (lol NERD)
- Perform Il Dolce Suono from Lucia di Lammermoor at La Scala (is Tahani’s list my list?)
- Burp the alphabet (I CAN ALREADY DO THIS!)
- Become a master woodworker (okay it’s officially not my list)
- Learn how to repave a driveway (see above)
- Break Graham Gooch’s record of 456 runs in a single test (what are these words)
- Master conducting – orchestra (alright)
- Master conducting – train (lolol best joke for Z)
- Beat NBA Jam on all-star (??)
- Free Solo the Colossus of Rhodes (even when already dead I’d be too scared for this)
- Fix the Jesus fresco that lady messed up (this is the FUNNIEST FORKING THING EVER)
- Tahani al-Jamil’s ‘Borges’s “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote’”” (WTF DOES THIS MEAN)
- Make a vegan dessert that nobody suspects if vegan (ughhh Mikey my boy you still have a long way to go with your unfunny vegan jokes. This isn’t a hard thing to accomplish – if a food is bad, it’s not because it’s vegan, it’s because it’s bad. We’ve all had bad desserts and they weren’t bad due to the presence or lack of milk or eggs. They were bad because the person making it didn’t know what they were doing. Ughhh)
- Invent new musical instrument (I’d rather learn all the existing ones)
- Really nail the Lisa Left Eye Lopes rap from ‘Waterfalls’ (DONE)
- Finish Infinite Jest (NEVER)
- Spend one meaningful day with my parents [and she ending up having thousands! Ughh the best!]
- Defuse a bomb (YES)
- Fly a helicopter (NO)
- Perfect the backhand slice (DONE, BABIES)
When Janet tells Tahani, “the thing you wanted me to tell you when it happened? It happened”, I thought OMG IS IT KAMILLAH OR HER PARENTS, KAMILLAH OR HER PARENTS? The cut to her already being BFF with her sister and them living together (soulmates!) wrecked me so hard. Kamillah already made it and they have the relationship they always wanted. It was too much, and then you realize that that means the parents are coming. When her mother opened by shouting “My darlings!” oh my god if you didn’t gasp cry then you are dead inside. It was perfect, it was too much, it was beautiful. I keep thinking of that moment. It’s some of the best TV ever. How they built up that journey for this family, seeing how much they tortured Tahani, and then how she was responsible for them not being tortured forever but being redeemed so they could all enjoy what they missed out on, it might be the most emotionally meaningful argument for what they’re trying to say.
At Tahani’s goodbye party, she namedrops Frank Gehry (how many godparents does this b have!!) and we get a treat of seeing that John has made it as well, and as always he swans in and out faster than you can track and is at the ready with the funniest g-d line (“Alexander the Fine”) and gone before you catch your breath. He was such a great addition this season. Tahani realizes that she isn’t ready to leave through the door, but she wants to leave the Good Place – and train to be an afterlife architect, like Michael. This is my favorite. I love that not all the humans went through, and I love that Tahani is REALLY committing to helping people, and not just talking about it like she did on earth. On the podcast earlier this season, Jameela talked about how much she loved Tahani’s special growth and journey and we didn’t know what she was talking about until this great decision. Whereas Jason came full circle to how he started as Jianyu, Tahani finally became what she pretended to be on earth: someone who really and truly helps people, as well as an incredibly accomplished woman. She can literally do everything now, and she helped save humanity. (And she “snogged Ryan Gosling. Couple of times, actually.”)
I also loved that she trained all the animals, including the server panda. BUT QUESTION: Is this a magic panda that she trained to wait on her? Or did she train a regular panda to speak, serve, &c, and so she trained him to be magic? IF IT’S THE LATTER, and we know that Jeremy Bearimy works in mysterious ways, THEN MY BIG QUESTION IS GOING TO REMAIN IN ALL CAPS: IS THIS REGULAR PANDA THAT SHE TRAINED TO DO MAGICAL THINGS THE SAME MAGIC PANDA THAT JASON REFERENCES IN SEASON 2 THAT THEY SHOULD CAPTURE AND USE TO HELP THEM????!!!!!!!!! Did Tahani train the magic panda that then somehow was the panda that showed up two seasons ago??!! that’s some ‘Interstellar’ time shit right there.
Tahani and Michael go to the architects offices, and there we get a whole bunch of amazingness in a short time: Brett is on a TV screen in the hallway, being debriefed after another failed test. I like to think that his line of questioning shows he is really trying to think through his actions, and just still has a lot of work to do, but he will make it eventually. Then we see Glenn, my fave, who is super excited to have Tahani on his team! It’s so sweet! And craziest of all, Shawn is there, and although his face and tone still say evil, he’s…he’s pretty much not. It’s so forking good, as is his never-ending ‘ever, ever, ever’ delivery.
Fun facts:
- Nick Offerman (not Ron Swanson) makes it to the Good Place, which is fun (hope he learned in his tests to stop making stupid vegan jokes), but not as fun as knowing that the chair he’s praising, that Tahani has crafted, he actually despised in real life. They couldn’t get the $50,000 chair Nick suggested they get for this scene (wonder why) and he said that the chair they chose was so poorly made that his woodworking friends were going to make fun of him for praising it on TV.
- The al Jamils watch ‘Home Alone’ together on movie night, the movie Tahani was afraid of when Jason first showed her, but now she’s not afraid of her family abandoning her. (“you hear that? I’m not afraid anymore!”)
- Kamillah was painting waves.
- When Michael and Tahani go into the hub where the Doorman sits (now so much livelier and busier due to all the happenings in the universe, I love it), you can see (mostly hear) Trevor screaming as he flies across the space. In season 3, the judge pinged him off the bridge, and he has been pinging around every since. I CANNOT WITH THIS SHOW.
- Michael’s gift to Tahani on her first day as an intern is the peacock bowtie he wore in the pilot.
Chidi Annakendrick time.
When the screen showed that another 661.7 Bearimys had past, I started hyperventilating knowing that this was going to be the Eleanor and Chidi section. We start with the two nerd lovers reading, Eleanor finally finishing Scanlon’s What We Owe to Each Other (the book she ripped to write the ‘Eleanor – Find Chidi’ note), and Chidi reading The Da Vinci Code, calling it a garbage book. Our favorite pair still seems as happy together as ever, despite thousands and thousands of Bearimys spent together, but Chidi you can tell is weary. They have another fun dinner with their friends – Simone, who I sobbed seeing, along with Eleanor’s old roommates (the dress bitch made it in!), which also made me sob, and UZO, my favorite! I’m vexed, Uzo, truly vexed! Having this group of people together is the best part; this is what the Good Place should be all about. I love that Eleanor’s old friends haven’t had their personalities changed – they are still trash who want a karaoke bar that’s also a tanning salon, so the harder you go at the song the tanner you get (incred) – but they are better people now. It shows that the system really works. You don’t have to be boring or flat to get in; you can be yourself as long as you’re a decent person.
Anyway this group made me so happy and so cry. But when Eleanor says how fun it was, Chidi says yeah, it’s always fun, all the hundreds or thousands of times they’ve gone out with this group. We also learn that Donna and Chidi’s parents have made it in and have met many times. Chidi recounts these facts in a tired manner – everything he ever wanted, he got long ago. Chidi is ready to go, you know right away, and so does Eleanor. Oh my god, the sobbing. How does one leave the other?
I’m so glad I forgot that people saw the show filming in Europe last year, so I got to enjoy the surprise Athens and Paris emergency getaways as intended. This was an incredible section, not just for the views of the acrompolympse (this is how I pronounce it so I may as well be honest in my writing it) but for focusing solely on Eleanor and Chidi’s story. They deserved it after all they’ve been through. They got to go up the acrompolympse before it opened to the public one morning, and the local Greek crew was so emotional that it makes me emotional to think about. I went once and it was packed to the gills with sweaty tourists, so this is nice.
People always point to “Janets” as evidence of how good D’Arcy Carden is (rightly so), but her best performance for me might be the subtle faces she makes during this section. You can see on her face that she is going to help Eleanor, but she knows it’s wrong. If Chidi is ready, then you need to let him go. She does say this eventually, but her face said it first, and continues to show her disagreement with Eleanor while continuing to help.
After Athens, Janet zipped them to Paris, where the weather was indeed perfect for Paris: overcast and chilly. The cut right to Sacre Coeur made me cry too even though my only really strong memory from all my visits is hilarious (my cousin and I tried to buy Invicta backpacks off of Italian tourists on these steps, eventually successfully, and we met a man who kept saying “yes yes I write many books!”). We knew Chidi had lived in Paris, and when he walked to his old apartment, you could feel him saying goodbye to everything he did in his life. Eleanor finally admits to him that she knew he wanted to leave and didn’t want him to because she was always abandoned and alone on earth, and it is heartbreaking. She’s overcome so many of her terrible traits but she’s still scared of being alone forever. But the biggest problem she overcame is her selfishness, and so she quickly realizes that the last selfless act she has to do is let him go. She says she owes it to him to let him go, calling back to Scanlon (and the whole message of the show, really). THIS SHOW IS PERFECT.
If you weren’t crying the entire time already, this really started the unending cry wave. Chidi’s goodbye party was done silently, with just that music that was too much playing, so it was a punch in the gut. It was so well done, so perfect, and so sad. And then it got worse (/better), when Chidi talked about the wave returning to the ocean and hot goddamn, this is the most beautiful idea ever. I’m not going to copy it here because it will cheapen it, but it shares an incredible idea, and the perfect Eleanor and Chidi ending, along with his beefcake calendar. Ugh my heart. With Chidi’s final exit, his journey was perfectly completed, since unlike everyone else, he didn’t need to sit on the bench till he was ready. He was ready, and he strode right through – the biggest decision in the entire universe, he made easily. He was complete.
Fun facts:
- It took Eleanor 2000 Bearimys to finish Scanlon’s book, a joke Schur included because he still hasn’t finished it.
- We learn that Tommy Quine Quine made it in, along with the show’s real philosophy advisors, Professors Todd May and Pamela Hieronymi (seen in Chidi’s class).
- A few episodes ago in the judge’s chambers, Chidi asked for some warm pretzels, because if he was going out, he was going out with a belly full of warm pretzels. In Athens, Eleanor and Chidi walk down the street eating koulouri, a typical snack that is sooort of like a soft pretzel! He’s going out with a belly full of sort-of soft pretzels.
- Eleanor and Chidi are the first people to be together for thousands and thousands of years and still use the terms girlfriend and boyfriend.
- The music played over Chidi’s party is the incredible Spiegel im Spiegl by Avro Part. It broke me.
- Someone translated the calendar that Chidi gave Eleanor, and two of the big chunks of text are lyrics to “The Power of Love”. There’s also a day called Monday2.
Eleanor and Michael
My favorite trashbag and the best demon in the world had the most unbelievable journeys. Michael went from an evil demon wanting to torture humans in a new fun way to helping save all of humanity and truly loving humans more than anything. Eleanor went from a mean loner who was Arizona shrimp horny to saving humanity with her best friends. Her ethical journey, shown from the layman’s perspective, helped simplify the immense concepts of the show, making all the lofty goals palatable and natural. When you think about how much she sucked on earth, it really shows how strong and how smart this new system is, how much it could help nearly everybody and how even people who suck may be worthy of redemption. Eleanor was not a good person before, and now she is our hero.
However, she’s not ready to move on, despite years now without Chidi, even though she wants to be ready. Letting him go was one of her most selfless acts, showing how much she’s grown. But she needs to keep helping the people close to her who remain, so she can be sure she did everything she could to make them happy. First, that means a return to my favorite person in the entire world, Mindy St. Clair. Mindy stayed in the Medium Place this entire forking time, rebooting Derek so many times that now he is, I don’t even know what he is, an all-powerful being that is at once a singular point in space but also contains space itself, whose moment of creation is now the same as the inevitable heat death of the universe. So yeah, he sounds super annoying. Niednagel outdid himself on this new Derek form, with the swirling martini glasses that also have Dereks in them, and those Dereks also have martini glasses. It’s INCREDIBLE.
Mindy is still crabby and blasé about her existence. It makes a kind of poignant, lovely sense that she is the worst case version of Eleanor, if Eleanor continued to always be alone, and that’s why Eleanor needs to help her. It makes me cry all over again thinking about how all their stories connect. Mindy doesn’t want just anyone in charge of her if she decides to go through the system so she can go to the Good Place – but now Tahani is an architect (with the best line, “Mindy St. Clair as I neither live nor breathe”) who could handle her case. It’s beautiful, as is Mindy’s thank you to Eleanor about how she never gave a crap about herself, so it’s nice that Eleanor gave a crap about her. Of course her capper is the hysterical line “I’m really glad I filmed you having sex”. Typical Mindy.
But ensuring Mindy’s eventual salvation isn’t enough. The most important player in this whole epic is still left: Michael. The reveal of what Eleanor realizes she needs to do for Michael is magically done, starting with Maya Rudolph smacking her desk and shouting “COCKAMAMIE” as no one else could. I was in the middle of thinking ‘that was one of the best moments ever’ but then it cut to the one that rips your heart out: Eleanor saying, “Michael, come on in.” That mirroring of his famous first line, plus the mirroring of Eleanor’s 1.13 speech (“it took me a while to figure it out” &c.) absolutely slayed me. That is incredible writing. Michael becoming a real boy, Pinocchio, is of course where his story has been heading the entire time; I just never guessed. Eleanor and Janet warn him that life will be hard (“you have blood now!”) and that they don’t know if the system will still be the same when he dies, and he says “that’s what makes it special. I won’t exactly know what will happen after I die. Nothing more human than that.” That’s it man, that’s the whole thing. Oh man Ted Danson is THE BEST.
The waterworks continue courtesy of the Doorman finally getting a real frog and from another big Janet Moment. She was never sad about the others, because she knew they were ready to be at peace with the universe (and she lives all times at once so won’t be lonely (I’m really holding fast to that)). But with Michael going to earth, she’s really sad, because she will be worried about him the entire time and unable to help him. I love them.
The shots of Michael’s life on earth are hilarious – he does everything he wanted to do as a human, including take guitar lessons. He has a big oafy dog named Jason, with a Jaguars bowtie (of course he named the dog Jason, Jason is a puppy). And you may have noticed he lived in apartment 322 (the number of residents in his neighborhood) at 12358 Blatta Vista (the number of his neighborhood, and Blatta means cockroach. Team Cockroach for life). I don’t think I ever cried as hard as I did during the last five minutes, when Eleanor and Janet say goodbye, when Eleanor walks through the door, and when we finally see what happens. It’s just vague enough that everyone can decide for themselves what they want to believe. All the existing little firefly lights, the essences of people who have walked through the door, are joined by Eleanor’s lights, and they float to earth and inspire humans to be just a little better. I honestly still can’t believe what one of her little lights brought about on earth, to Michael Realman, the stupidest best name. This ending is so gorgeous and so perfect. I’m blown away by what they accomplished. Our humans worked so hard to become better people and they forever inspire others to do the same, regardless of their own form of existence. Some people don’t understand the point of the door, saying that if they had eternity in the Good Place they’d enjoy it forever. Well, bully for you. I get it though. As Chidi says in his philosophy class, “mortality offers meaning to our lives” (“and morality helps navigate that meaning”, the point of the show). All good things need to come to an end eventually, otherwise they wouldn’t be good. I feel that, my little chili babies. Hot diggity dog this was the best forking show ever.
Okay that’s enough crying. Take it sleazy.
Emmy Awards 2018: What You Need to Know Before this Garbage
Second of the first of all, these forking awards are on a MONDAY this year, instead of a Sunday. To quote one of the most snubbed should-be-nominees on our list, WHAT….MAN….DID THIS. Sunday is award show day. Sunday is the day you can spend sleeping in to prepare yourself for the excitement and the stress, making theme foods (my initial plan was: (veggie) shrampies with white chocolate sauce, clam chowder, frozen yogurt (can you tell what show I’m going to be talking about the most yet?)), and getting your tweeting fingers ready. More importantly, Sunday is the day I could have watched this forking show! Readers probably know I live in London, but I’m writing this from the USA. When I booked this visit, I was looking at dates and remembered thinking, ‘oh that weekend is the Emmys! I’ll fly back to London Monday night then so I can watch them on Sunday night with my family! What an auspicious turn of events! I get to watch live for the first time in years instead of cobbling together shitty youtube videos that random people took of their own TVs!’ But NOOOOOOPE. Now instead of getting to live tweet I’m going to have to stick to day-after tweeting, which NO ONE cares about but I’m STILL going to do OBVIOUSLY because my takes are hot.
First: The most infuriating abomination of a category this year is Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics, which means Best Song. And not to belittle any of the nominees, but they’re bullshit compared to literally any song from ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’, the CW’s musical dramedy about mental illness. It is one of the greatest shows ever to exist, and 80% of that is because of the songs. Each episode has 2-3 original songs that brilliantly evoke musical theatre standards, pop genres, and/or famous bands. The songs are written by Adam Schlesinger, who you may know either as the guy from Fountains of Wayne or as the guy who wrote the one-hit-wonder’s hit song from ‘That Thing You Do!’ If you have any doubt in my opinion that his Crazy Ex songs should be the pictures next to the dictionary definition of Emmy-winning songs if audio could be captured as pictures, then just think for a second about how movie producers were like ‘hey we are making a movie that ENTIRELY REVOLVES around a song being so great that it catapults all the action forward and we need you to just like, go write that song and have it all be believable’ AND HE DID.
Here are the nominees:
- (WINNER) SNL: “Come Back Barack” – a very funny song and great moment on the show but not better than the actual best topical song of the year, “Let’s Generalize About Men“. I dare you to watch this and not squeal with glee at every moment.
- Big Mouth: “Am I Gay?” Again, fun song on an absolutely incredible show, but not better than the HILARIOUS and perfect ABBA-inspired “The First Penis I Saw“!
- A Christmas Story Live: “In the Market for a Miracle” Haven’t Pasek & Paul won enough in literally like a 15 month span?? CHILL BOYS. Also, if we’re talking Christmas miracles, what about “Maybe She’s Not Such a Heinous Bitch After All”?? I mean hello, talk about perfectly capturing an era of music.
- The Good Fight: “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” I’m not even going to talk about how RUDE it is to nominate a song from the drama about lawyers and not the MUSICAL COMEDY about lawyers, but I’ll say what about the Fosse-inspired “Strip Away My Conscience”?? I mean, you wanna talk clever writing, talk about what they rhymed with ‘luridness’ and still got approval from the censors. Man alive.
- Steve Martin & Martin Short’s special: “The Buddy Song” JFC. I love these guys so much but puh lease. How about the Gene Kelly-evoking “Head in the Clouds”? This song is considered one of the WEAKEST of the season and listen to how great it is.
- If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast: “Just Getting Started” I don’t know what this documentary?? is, but how about the amazing song “End of the Movie”? They actually got JOSH GROBAN to sing a song! And it was incredible! Man alive if this category were a table full of glasses I would knock it over.
Let’s get to tonight’s nominees already.
- Atlanta (FX)
- Barry (HBO)
- Black-ish (ABC)
- Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO)
- GLOW (Netflix)
- The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon)
- Silicon Valley (HBO)
- Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix)
EIGHT? FORKING EIGHT NOMINEES and they still don’t get it right??? Ughhhhh. I haven’t finished ‘Atlanta’ so I can’t comment. I know it is genius but from what I’ve seen it is a drama. ‘Barry’ was great but was also FORKING HARROWING and made me terrified and anxious more than it made me laugh. And that ending?? And it’s a comedy? Fuck no! But it is great. GLOW I really like but it’s not best of the year! A few of the episodes this season were stellar but it took a while to get going. This is one of the shows that got really lucky with voters deciding to adopt it as one of its faves and nominating it across categories at every event even though it’s not the best. Maisel is the one show on this list that is actually outstanding, perfect in almost every way (the almost courtesy of the Jane Lynch storyline) and deserves to win. It is THE BEST. Maisel is absolutely pitch perfect from the writing to the music to the performances. And it has Tony Shalhoub! SHALHOUB! ‘Silicon Valley’ is an example of the voters’ rut they like to get stuck in, and more than that they should have gotten a year off after the TJ Miller bullshit. Now, as for our pal Kimmy. You know I am a long-term Kimmy Schmidt apologist. Despite its pitfalls, its had some of the funniest lines, and it introduced classic characters to us, mainly Kimmy and the unmatched Titus. I’ve even tried to excuse the Jane Krakowski storylines because of her incredible quips. But this season was NOT. GOOD. I honestly can’t believe it got nominated. Aside from the one part where a guy introduced himself to Kimmy and said “Hi I’m whatever” and she responded “Not me, I’m Kimmy”, nothing was really great about it. Give Titus and the writers a backdated Emmy for his viral interview scene in season 1, and get rid of this nonsense.
Now what should be up there? ‘Maisel’ should be fighting neck and neck with the most brilliant, hilarious, and surprisingly sincere comedy in existence, “The Good Place”. I honestly cannot get over how wonderful this show is. Every inch of the writing, the production (those special effects, my god), and the acting is across the board magnificent. It has an extremely clever premise that keeps getting twisted and turned onto itself, with storylines you just seem to get a handle on blowing up with equal chance of im- or exploding. And they’ve made a generation of tv-watchers interested in moral philosophy and being better people. It’s also beloved by critics. I love this show so much. Its absence is kind of hilarious, proving yet again that awards mean nothing.
Also, ‘Crazy Ex Girlfriend’ should be on this list. Its latest season was riveting, dark, and risky. They took chances that no other show would take, and kept a story, one that could have gone out of control, together with a steady hand.
And what about ‘Brooklyn 99’, after how much it was in the news after being cancelled (and picked up again)?? We love that damn show! I mean even my beloved ‘Jane the Virgin’ is better than some of the stuff on this list. And ‘Big Mouth’ in its debut season was flawless! Where is that? Ugh Emmy voters. Also, enough with these expanded categories. It’s clearly not helping to refuse to narrow it down, so keep it to 5. I hate treating this like participation trophies. When the best of the year aren’t competing, the winner isn’t really going to be the best, is it. When Federer or Serena decline to play in a slam it’s not like the eventual winner is the best if they didn’t play the best.
- The Americans (FX)
- The Crown (Netflix)
- Game of Thrones (HBO)
- The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)
- Stranger Things (Netflix)
- This Is Us (NBC)
- Westworld (HBO)
Ugh miss me with these extra long nominee lists, guys. It’s such nonsense. Nominations are supposed to mean something, not just be a slapdash list of all the shows an old man could remember at that given moment.
I’m so tired, like sooo tired, of ‘Game of Thrones’. Is it really still on? Still treating women like objects and what not? Hates it. I did love this season of ‘Stranger Things’, but not in like an ’emmy-winning’ way. They’re all FINE, I guess, but if anything but ‘The Americans’, in its perfect final season’, sweeps tonight, it’ll be wrong. ‘The Americans’ played the long game over 6 seasons, drawing subtle, nuanced storylines with outstanding performances and writing that came together in its depressing, unavoidable, great ending. It should absolutely win.
I don’t have time to go into every category of acting nominees; I got a plane to catch. But I’ll say a few things. Ted Danson MUST win for TGP. He is American’s national treasure for a reason. If you thought his laugh in Season 1 episode 13 was iconic, wait till you see his relieved “Oh you guys!” from this season. I could cry just thinking about that and about when he solved the trolley problem. Tell me any of the other nominees deserve to win. I’ll wait. And then I’ll tell you why you’re wrong.
As for lead actress in a comedy, it doesn’t even really matter. Rachel Brosnahan on ‘Maisel’ is the clear best option, and even if a properly done category should probably win. But all her competitors should be different. This hundo p should have been Rachel for ‘Maisel’, Kristen Bell for ‘The Good Place’ (absolute BRILLIANCE), Rachel Bloom for ‘Crazy Ex Girlfriend’ (if you aren’t jumping up and down in agreement, you haven’t watched her), Tracee Ellis Ross for ‘black-ish’ I guess, and Gina Rodriguez for ‘Jane the Virgin’. No matter what you think about that show, how telenovela it is (ps it’s a telenovela), Gina is sensational. And yeah, that’s five. FIVE NOMINEES PEOPLE. IN EVERY AWARD SHOW, IN EVERY CATEGORY. DO IT.
As for lead actors in drama, if anyone but Philip and Elizabeth, our beloved Russian spies, win, it’s wrong. WRONG.
What else is wrong?
Supporting actress, comedy: How D’Arcy Carden wasn’t nominated for ‘The Good Place’, I’ll never know. She’s a critical darling, like everything about that show, and created an entire KIND Of character. I also would have voted in Donna Lee Champlin for ‘Crazy Ex’. She’s remarkable. I don’t even want to talk about how many people are in this category (too many) and how many make no sense. But lets please give it to Alex Borstein for being incredible on ‘Maisel’.
Supporting actor, drama: Does a category that doesn’t include Noah Emmerich in ‘The Americans’ even count? No, no it doesn’t. Stanny Beems will always have a place in viewers’ hearts, and no one else on this list can come close to what he did.
Ok I am going to stop ranting about awards that DO NOT MATTER and finish taking this out of my suitcase (it’s too heavy (as always)). Watch tonight and let me know your thoughts in the comments; I’ll be on a plane so keep me informed. And if you haven’t watched the shows on this list that I’ve said are amazing, what are you waiting for???