David Lynch Friday #9 – Inland Empire

Oh man, this film. Fourteen years later and this film still confounds me. Watching it earlier in the week was the first time I made it all the way through. Back in 2006, I couldn’t do it. The film was obtuse and unwieldy and nothing clicked for me. This isn’t exactly uncharted territory for Lynch and his viewers. Inland Empire remained, for nearly a decade and a half, the lone Lynch work that just didn’t mean anything at all to me. Part of the reason for my doing this project was that it would provide me an opportunity to give Inland Empire another go. I initially planned to watch this film in two sittings — make it easier on my brain. Ninety minutes and ninety minutes. Monday night I sat down, hit play and was mesmerized for 180 minutes. I did it! I finished! And I did it in one go! Hurray for me!

This film still confounds me.

But now, it confounds me in a good way.

I’m on the path now.

There’s a destination in mind.

I will watch this again and again and then again and one day I will unlock all of its mysteries.

And this has been my ultimate point with the project: film requires us as much as we it. Fourteen years later, I’ve now exited my twenties and thirties. I am more mature from a life standpoint and most certainly from a film standpoint. This is why Lynch is my favorite filmmaker of all time: his work grows and matures with us because, love it or hate it, his films stay with us, in our subconscious, the entire way.

So, what exactly is Inland Empire?

The only thing I can say with certainty is that it’s Lynch’s most experimental film. It’s also likely to stand as his final feature, which is oddly satisfying as it bears a certain symmetry to his very first feature film, Eraserhead. Both films are experimental and with Inland Empire, it shows that, decades later, Lynch has never lost his spirit or individuality. Where Eraserhead, to be reductive, told the story of a man in trouble, Inland Empire, again being reductive, tells the story of a woman in trouble.

But let’s dive in a bit deeper.

The first thing to strike me as interesting occurs in the opening seconds of the film. Dark. Shadow. A flashlight clicks on. Flooding light. The unseen person holding the flashlight retreats and the title, Inland Empire is revealed. I love how Lynch shoots this sequence in reverse. Instead of highlighting the film as something found, he unearths the film by showing light retreating to the shadows. I’m sure this is going to be key, one day, to my ultimate understanding of this film.

We move on to a dream sequence, cloaked in shadow, featuring two fuzzy faced people. They engage in sexual intercourse. We’re immediately thrown off and cannot understand what they’re saying (subtitles help, lol). Then, SNAP! We’re in the aftermath. The film is colorized and a traumatized woman sits alone in a hotel room, staring at the snowy signal loss on her television. This is reality and the aftermath of a dream. Everything will only grow more abstract from here because where we snow, she sees a sitcom featuring three people in full rabbit suits. They speak using obtuse sentences that don’t connect to each other in any normal way. There’s a laugh track that makes no sense. Are we peeking into this woman’s soul? Has television snatched her soul? Our soul? I believe the rabbits are a commentary on art and the critique of art. They also come across as a way for Lynch to show us how something that doesn’t make sense to us, may make perfect sense to someone else. It is a fascinating opening salvo.

We move on to Laura Dern, who will dominate this film. She is extraordinary here, like she always is with Lynch. She’s an actress recently cast in a film alongside a mega star played by Justin Theroux. Before that can take place, she’s visited by her Polish neighbor, played with gusto by Grace Zabriskie. Zabriskie levels an ominous warning to Laura Dern about her film, stating that where Dern thinks the film innocuous, she should prepare herself for brutal fucking murder. She then tells a fable about a boy who went out to play…he looked into the mirror and evil was born. And right there folks, we have a direct connection into the world of Twin Peaks. The mirror. The evil twin. Lynch is incorporating all of his work into one gigantic universe and I am here for all of it. Yet there’s more to the fable than just a connection to Twin Peaks. The fable is central to helping us understand this narrative.

Continuing on, it doesn’t make much sense to further explore the plot because it’s borderline indecipherable. Lynch is toying with our perceptions of reality and he’s being overtly impressionistic here. He chose to shoot the film on video and it’s definitely odd at first but we get used to the look and feel and ultimately, we come to understand why he made this choice. The real star of Inland Empire, however, is the sound design. It’s, at once, sparse and all encompassing. The sound screeches at us and fills us with dread and anxiety, never relenting. It is out of this world — perhaps the best use of sound in Lynch’s career.

So what we have here is Lynch using his crew and everything else at his disposal to tell a story without a coherent or cohesive narrative. Why? Because he is obsessed with dream states and psychological story telling. The film in the film is a remake of an older Polish film that was never finished because the leads died during the filming — dead by murder. The film was deemed cursed and nobody involved now, knew this when they signed up. Soon, Dern’s character falls further into descent. Her husband is a violent Polish (possible) gangster. Theroux’s character, after having been warned to not have sex with Dern, does just that and disappears. The director (Kingsley) and a grip (Bucky) get into a hilarious spat on set. But what does any of this mean?

I wrote in my notebook: I am TORN on what this is!

And I still am.

Because this seems to be an exploration on how we, as humans, interact with each other. If it’s just that, it’s fascinating but I think there’s more at work here. There is also a central theme of women navigating a dangerous world. It’s like a noir-ish mashup of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. The thing is, the real world is just as wild and dangerous as these aforementioned fantasy worlds — especially for women. Our female counterparts must always be cognizant of their surroundings and who could be inhabiting the shadows. Nothing is easy or safe for them but I still think there’s more at play here.

Here’s one other thing I know for certain: the final hour of this film is equally haunting and mesmerizing — the viewer cannot look away.

But what else is going on?

So I had a thought about the woman watching all of this unfold on her television. Is she watching the original Polish film? Is it all in her head? Is she watching a fictionalized version of her own life and how it could be? Or…is she…us? This is where Lynch’s home video look makes sense to me. The camera is us. We’re judging all of these events and these people experiencing said events. We are the viewer and this is the story as seen through the eyes of the viewer but still, there’s more going on here.

And this is the major reason I find this film so confounding. I simply cannot land on solid ground.

I think back to that fable about the little boy and the mirror. The mirror can be seen as an instrument of vanity and vanity is the evil twin. A world obsessed with itself is an evil world. We must look inward to project outward. This is vitally important in art. There are sometimes two sides of an artist. You have the creative side and the destructive side. The process of filmmaking is no easy undertaking and there are plenty of aborted projects or projects that die for various other reasons. There are allusions to a possible miscarriage by Dern’s character and part of her journey can be seen as her way of coping with the loss and trying to make sense of the world in the aftermath. But then again, it could merely be Dern reflecting on events and non-events from her past that have already happened. This could be purgatory and she is already dead. Hell, this could be Lynch commenting on his own creative process — the trials and tribulations of the eternal life of success and crushing defeat of a project’s death.

Or.

This is all about two sides of the same world. We have the surface and we have what’s just below the surface. Just below the surface is where the engine revs and powers what we see on the surface. Perhaps, it isn’t the twin who is evil but the world that decided to mirror itself and confound us with its lies. And maybe through sacrifice, the good side, the side of courage and perseverance, can give and receive love.

And then again, maybe I’m all wrong. Either way, I have begun to open myself up to Inland Empire and thus it has begun to share some of its secrets.

Next week, Twin Peaks. Until then, love each other.

The Very Best Of The PS4 Generation

Seven years is a good run. Not the longest generation of consoles but not the shortest either. I play a lot of games in my downtime — it’s how I relax. I’m forty-one years old and video games have been with me my entire life. We’ve grown up alongside each other. Today, I’m going to break down the best games of this past generation. This generation was the first in a long time that I didn’t also own an xbox console — I didn’t see the point. Sony dominates the first party conversation and Microsoft dropped the ball this time around. I will also not be commenting on Nintendo games, I have a Switch but Nintendo usually deserves their own post because they continue to march to their own beat.

We’ll begin with ten third party games (or in one specific case, series) that I found to be a cut above the rest. CONTROL delivered an incredibly complex sci-fi story wrapped around a third person action/superhero game. Fans of Twin Peaks and the X-Files would be well served by this one. Tons of performance issues but several patches and now new machines have helped this quite a bit. HELLBLADE: SENUA’S SACRIFICE gave us an extremely moving story about mental illness inside of a barbaric action game. Play this one with headphones on as the audio design is some of the best I’ve ever experienced. KENTUCKY ROUTE ZERO TV EDITION was an action adventure title that played as a dreamy metaphor of life and death — of struggle and acceptance. Again, fans of Twin Peaks or David Lynch in general will eat this up. LIFE IS STRANGE has become one of my favorite things ever. Another adventure title with most of its emphasis on story, this entire series pulled every one of my heart strings. The story of two estranged best friends trying to reconnect while solving a series of murders and attempting to alter time to save their town, hooked me. We then got a prequel showing how the murders began and that was pretty great too. The official second season followed two Mexican-American brothers as they fled the police following an extraordinary event ending with the police killing their father. This sort of nuanced story is why I still play games. METAL GEAR SOLID 5 delivered in spades. Kojima’s final effort for Konami before going solo was a wonder to behold. A bit lighter on the typical bonkers Metal gear story but providing us the best gameplay in the series’ history. Metal Gear Solid is my favorite game ever and Kojima is my favorite developer ever. He’s the David Lynch of games — more on him in a bit. RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 is the best game Rockstar has ever made. It started slow, almost too slow for me but by the end, we were given a story that, had it been filmed for television, would’ve swept the Emmy Awards. It still blows my mind that nobody has tried to option this yet. RESIDENT EVIL 2 was remade last year and delivered the best Resident Evil game ever, save for RE4. The new version of the Tyrant is terrifying and awesome all the same. TITANFALL 2 is perhaps the best feeling first person shooter I’ve ever played. Buttery smooth and fluid. Great action and greater fights. WHAT REMAINS OF EDITH FINCH is another adventure title that focused most on story. This time we were given a tragic family history in beautifully rendered little vignettes — like reading a great collection of short stories. WOLFENSTEIN: THE NEW ORDER – The first level of this game sucks, almost to the point that you won’t play further. Mistake. Once BJ wakes up in that hospital, this game delivers insane action, great stealth and surprisingly beautiful writing. I swear, the people who wrote this one had just binged some Cormac McCarthy.

Onto my beloved Playstation.

Five games spoke to me enough to write about while not quite cracking my top ten of this generation. CONCRETE GENIE was whimsical and fun to play. It was full of color and sweet nature while telling a story about bullying and believing in yourself. DETROIT BECOME HUMAN is the best game Quantic Dream has created. A cautionary tale set in the near future that is as much about xenophobia, bigotry and general fucked up-ness in our current society as it is about androids in the future. GHOST OF TSUSHIMA is the most recent release and a stellar one. Full of extravagant art direction, a beautiful score and rock solid third person samurai/stealth gameplay, it delivered everything. UNCHARTED 4 was awesome and supremely polished but also a bit too long. It felt like the end and like nobody working on it really wanted it to actually end. UNTIL DAWN took the teen slasher flick and decided to out Quantic Dream the studio they were attempting to ape. This one arguably should have made my list.

Now, the official first party (and/or PlayStation exclusive) top ten.

10 – DAYS GONE – I was lucky to have waited a few weeks before firing this one up. I understand it was chock full of performance issues at launch but by the time I began my play through, those were largely fixed by several patches. Think Sons of Anarchy mixed with 28 Days Later while playing Syphon Filter. A bit rough around the edges but Sam Witwer gave a phenomenal performance and those horde fights were the stuff of legend.

9 – RATCHET & CLANK – A remake/reimagining of a beloved Playstation staple, this game delivered perfect gameplay, gorgeous visuals and a pretty hilarious story. Play it, you won’t regret it.

8 – UNCHARTED: LOST LEGACY – Where was Chloe in Uncharted 4? She’s right here, lol. This was released after Uncharted 4 and many assumed it was just dlc. No, this was a full fledged game albeit shorter in length than its predecessor. This shorter length really helped keep the narrative focused and thus ended up being the superior entry.

7 – SPIDER-MAN – I have loved Spider-Man since I was a little kid. This is the game I always dreamed I would one day be able to play. The swing mechanics are perfect and the story was pretty great too. (Miles Morales is, for sure, on my 2020 GOTY list)

6 – FINAL FANTASY 7 REMAKE – This one surprised me a bit. Next to Metal Gear, Final Fantasy is my favorite franchise in gaming. Hell, as a franchise, it is my favorite. Seven was never my favorite entry, I really liked it and from a technological standpoint, the leap from six to seven was mind blowing but it somehow kept me at arm’s length. The intense focus this remake shows and its ability to grow the story around Midgar so much provided me with the most joy I’ve felt from this franchise in a long time. I am and always will be a sucker for Final Fantasy.

5 – GOD OF WAR – This game uses a single camera shot through its entire runtime. That previous sentence doesn’t even make sense but it’s also not false. I still think about this aspect of the game and shake my head, laughing. Sony Santa Monica also made me care about Kratos for the first time in the history of this particular franchise. He was so much more nuanced and haggard this time around. The move to Norse mythology helped this franchise as well. A monumental creation.

4 – HORIZON: ZERO DAWN – Fun. Plain and simple. This has to be the most underrated game of this generation. It was overshadowed by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild upon release and that’s a shame. By the way, BOTW happens to be the most overrated game of this past generation. Horizon did nearly every single thing BOTW did and didn’t sacrifice any story to do it. Wonderful game.

3 – BLOODBORNE – I wasn’t a big Souls guy. Bloodborne intrigued me because of its Gothic horror setting. It reminded me of Castlevania. I played it. I hated it. I died a hundred times before even making it to the first boss. Then that boss, The Cleric Beast, whooped my ass another ten times. I hated the game more. Then I beat The Cleric Beast. I thought I understood the game. I fought the next boss, Father Gascoigne. He whopped my ass to a degree that sent me driving, in a rage, to GameStop. I walked in, no words, and threw the game on the counter. I then said, “fuck this game and I don’t care what you give me for it.” The kid smiled and began to laugh but then talked me into keeping the game. He gave me a few tips. I went home and fought Father Gascoigne again and he whooped my ass a few more times. Then I beat him. Then I beat Vicar Amelia at the last second with only a shred of health left. I dropped my controller and howled. I’ve never experienced exhilaration like that. I then proceeded to be the one whooping ass. Fucking Bloodborne, lol.

2 – THE LAST OF US PART 2 – I’ll keep this short because I’ve already written thousands of words on this work of art. It’s easily my 2020 game of the year and it’s one of the greatest ever achievements in this medium. The story is so deep that you can continue, to this day, to mine new and intimate things from it. I love this game with all my heart. It made me weep more than once. Some of you who are unfamiliar with The Last Of Us are not prepared in any way for what will be unleashed by the upcoming HBO series. This is the best of this medium, save for one.

1 – DEATH STRANDING – I told you there’d be more on Hideo Kojima. This is another one I’ve already written about at length. I had a good feeling I would really dig this game because I have always vibed with Kojima’s work. Our brains just sync. I still wasn’t expecting to love this game the way I did. It’s methodical and satisfying in ways I’ve rarely experienced. The performances are extraordinary. Higgs is one of my favorite ever villains. The musical cues are phenomenal. This is pure, unfiltered Kojima and I loved every second. In a time where our leaders are failing and looking to be as awful and divisive as ever, Kojima gives us art whose sole purpose is to bring people together. It is literally about reconnecting the world. The multiplayer aspects are revolutionary. It’s a game that continues to give me hope in this bleak world. It just may be my favorite game ever created.

That’s a wrap on the generation. I’ll probably return to poetry for the near future but at some point in either December or January I’ll begin my best of year lists. Until next week, love each other.

David Lynch Friday #0 – The Intro

My first experience with David Lynch was watching Dune as a child. I loved it. Now, I know that isn’t exactly the popular opinion with that film but it certainly mesmerized me. I also recall my parents watching The Elephant Man and then Blue Velvet. I specifically remember Blue Velvet because my mother thought it was crazy in a good way and my father thought the exact opposite — not at all his type of movie. Next was Twin Peaks. I was about ten years old when Twin Peaks came out. My mother was excited and I was already a huge fan of detective stories. To me, a new show from the guy who did Dune, starring the guy from Dune, and it was sort of a detective story? Yes please.

As I grew older, Lynch faded from me for a bit. I began my true obsession with his work when I was in high school. This was the jump off and I never looked back. I’ve devoured his work ever since and have loved it all, even when I hated it. There was only one film of his that I missed completely, The Straight Story. Disney Plus rectified that for me and now my only blank spot is Inland Empire. For the record, I’ve watched it, just not all the way through. I have a blu-ray waiting for me and I’ve revisited the Rabbits in the years since. I’m looking forward to it now.

This is what I cherish about Lynch’s work — it is uncompromising. Even when Twin Peaks returned, there were moments that drove me up the wall but I have learned to trust Lynch’s process and have found rewards at every turn. He is my favorite. He’s been my favorite for a long time and only recently challenged for the title by Sofia Coppola. We’ll see how this all holds upon this new revisiting of his oeuvre. Typically, I would focus solely on feature films but Twin Peaks in it’s entirety will be thrown in here because it is my absolute, number one, favorite thing ever. I will also be breaking the timeline and holding Twin Peaks for the very end. There is a chance that week will see my largest post ever. I always have a ton of thoughts on Twin Peaks and there is not a day that goes by without me thinking about the show.

Here we go. The David Lynch project will begin with Eraserhead next Friday. Until then, love each other.

Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood Is A Mess Worth Visiting

Ryan Murphy is a kitchen sink storyteller. Nothing is ever enough for him. The Netflix show, Hollywood, is a perfect example of this. He cannot simply just tell a story through to the end. It’s not enough for the story to be a version of Rock Hudson’s early career, or a black screenwriter, or gay in Hollywood, or closeted in Hollywood, or a black actress, or women in power, etc. — it must be about ALL of these issues. This leads to a story that is scattershot and never lands on level ground. With that said, it’s still a fascinating show full of amazing production design and great performances. Sure, the writing tends to let everyone down but the sheer balls of this undertaking and the full commitment by everyone involved still creates a show better than the sum of its parts.

On the technical side, Hollywood is as good as anything you can watch right now. The production and costume design are top notch and go a long way toward immersing us in the world. I love Murphy’s visual take on early Hollywood, warts and all. It was also interesting to see just how quaint the Oscars ceremonies once were.

Moving on to the actors, they are mostly very good. The standouts for me were Jeremy Pope, playing the screenwriter Archie. He was full of an earnest spirit that I loved — my second favorite character and performance. Next, Samara Weaving and Darren Criss. These two actors could do just about anything and I’d be there for all of it — the camera adores the two of them. Dylan McDermott is also awesome as Ern, the owner of a gas station that doubles as a prostitution ring. McDermott gets better and better each project he takes on — what a marvelous actor. However, I do find the glorification of Ern as this loveable scamp a little troubling. He’s a pimp and a bully who is forcing these guys into working for him — not very loveable if you ask me. This brings me to the character of Ellen Kinkaid, a loyal servant to her studio who grows into a major power player by the end of the show. Holland Taylor’s portrayal is extraordinary, adding in layers of despair and hope in equal measure. She bosses the screen around and it’s terrific to behold.

Now onto the subtext of the story. Murphy and his crew choose to weave in historical figures with fictional ones and the storylines blend in the same way. The show is very, very dark in tone — unafraid to show the nasty, seedy side of Hollywood. It’s grimy and makes the viewer feel gross at times. Hollywood is also very much about the #metoo movement — a noble statement if a bit out of place in early Hollywood. Lastly, Ern’s gas station prostitution ring is apparently based on something that took place in real life. That is absolutely insane to think about.

This all leads to an extremely ham fisted finale where all of the good guys win and all of the bad guys either lose, die, or see the error of their ways. I did not like it because it is simply not true. It’s fun to think about but none of this is happening right now, let alone eighty years ago. My biggest issue is how in the last fifty five minutes or so, Murphy crams in eighty years of Hollywood history and progress into a story that took place over the course of a couple of years in the early days of Tinseltown.

Like many Murphy projects before it, Hollywood is a slick, gorgeous production that is held back by way too many ideas for only seven episodes. It’s a valiant effort and pure of heart but ultimately leaves us feeling worn out and hollow, just like some of the players under the foot of the machine.

Next week, we’ll discuss the HBO doc series, I’ll Be Gone In The Dark. Until then, love each other.

Dark – A Slice Of German Perfection

Dark is a German science-fiction show brought to the United States by Netflix. It involves time travel and the end of the world. During its three season run, it was easily the best show in the world. I’ll die on this hill, especially if that were to happen on this show where I could somehow be resurrected to continue, either in this world or another. I have wanted to write about it for a long time but I find it difficult to articulate exactly why this show is so special.

I’ll give it my best shot.

Dark began with a suicide. It would take a long time for us to understand the ramifications throughout time and space of that action but we would eventually get there. Shortly following the tragic event, a group of teenagers would go exploring a secret cave in their small town. Strange sounds would scare the teenagers away, sending them fleeing until they realized that the youngest of them was missing. This is where things really jumped off. A search would return no results. The viewer is than shot back in time to the 1980s where the missing boy has turned up 27 years in the past. This boy would grow up to be the man who committed suicide at the onset of the series.

It only gets crazier from here.

We soon learn that there are three distinct time periods where children either go missing or are murdered. People begin popping up in various timelines, changing things in the other timelines on a constant basis. A new mysterious figure emerges and is eventually revealed as one of the main characters back from the far future. The timelines begin to expand. The plot becomes more intricate and alliances are formed. It appears we’re getting something superfluous and really only about good versus evil — we are not. This entire time, we are shown that the local power plant will explode and cause the apocalypse. Two distinct sides form, trying to either prevent the apocalypse or create it. Throughout the many different characters we meet and plot lines we follow, there is one main thread — love.

Our two main characters we follow throughout the three seasons are the two teenage star-crossed lovers: Martha and Jonas. Their story is initially sweet and full of young, blossoming love. Ultimately, it’s a story full of tragedy, consequences and sacrifice. In fact, the entire story is one of sacrifice.

The way the writers layer the plot with character is extraordinary. There is so much intricate plotting done here but the overall story is always character first. This is a rare feat and one that should be applauded. I have never seen a show quite like Dark. It gave me flashbacks to LOST, another plot heavy show that ultimately ended up being a multiple character study on our highs and lows as human beings.

With that out of the way, season three was launched worldwide on the exact date of the show’s apocalypse — nifty. Where season one was largely contained, season two expanded the timelines and who travelled between them. Season three introduces new worlds. If you don’t recap or rewatch beforehand, it will be easy to get lost. Two new worlds emerge: one made of Jonas’ creation and one of Martha’s. The two, through their time travels, form opposing factions and in Martha’s world, Jonas does not exist. They find it hard to trust anyone as they are constantly being manipulated by versions of people they once knew and trusted. No matter what they have ever tried, the apocalypse still happens. There is a knot that binds everything together and one faction is desperate to undo the knot, believing the end of all things will be their salvation. The other side seeks to preserve the knot and let the world be as it will. These are wonderful ideological debates to have during a final season as everything around them is ramping up.

I’m now realizing that writing any further about this amazing show and even more amazing final season will require complete spoilers and I don’t want to do that. What I will say is that a third world is discovered and the origin it represents is heartbreakingly beautiful. We fully understand the motivation behind its creation and I totally empathize with its creator.

Where the show ends begins with amazing cosmic imagery and descends into harrowing simplicity. There is no true happy ending to this story but the ending we receive is justified. Strike that, it’s not only justified, it’s perfect. How a show so crazy can stick a perfect landing is beyond my comprehension but the entire crew behind Dark did the impossible.

Love can create and it can destroy. Simple. Beautiful. Perfect.

Next week, a show I struggled with a bit but enjoyed overall, Hollywood. Until then, love each other.

Ramy Season 2 – An American Tale

Hulu has something special on their hands with Ramy. We’re two seasons in and I don’t think anyone who has seen the show is feeling patient about a third season — we want it now. The show has created such a unique blend of comedy and drama that it’s quickly established itself as a breath of fresh air. There is nothing else quite like it, save for Atlanta. It’s in these two shows that we can better understand America, it’s failings and the great promise that it still holds.

The first two episodes of season 2 give us a sobering look at what happens when we forget about our soldiers once they’ve returned home from war. Ramy finds himself at a spiritual crossroads and he’s desperately seeking not only guidance but also affirmation that he’s a good person. He helps this soldier who at first is ignorant of the Islamic faith while also condemning the religion and its followers because of the horrors he experienced fighting overseas. Ramy brings him to the man he seeks guidance from, played by Marshala Ali. The soldier, begins to see the humanity and good spirits of these people, his new friends and ultimately decides that he wants to convert to Islam. It’s here where things get dicey. Their place of worship is under constant protest from others who are still ignorant of the teachings of Islam. The soldier cannot abide this and attacks one of the protestors. The nuance involved in creating these scenes is nothing short of extraordinary. In a few moments, Ramy has shown us all sides of the argument — presented to us for examination and hopefully introspection.

The show eschews plot in favor of digging as deep as possible into all of the characters we meet. Ramy may be the title character but we are treated to whole episodes devoted to supporting characters. The show focuses on his sister Deena, his mother Maysa, his father Farouk and even his uncle Naseem. This is an effective tool in building the world from the inside out. It expands the show’s horizons and ours as well. Deena struggles with growing up while not only being Muslim but also a young woman in a doubly hostile world. Maysa struggles with her place in life and this pull from a part of herself that so badly wants to be helpful — even when she’s being increasingly offensive. Farouk is lost for much of the season as a man who has always supported his family and now being jobless. He’s being affronted by his own brand of chauvinism and ends up being rescued by a rescue dog. Farouk’s story in particular was a real treat this season. Then we have the brash and incredibly offensive Uncle Naseem. This season reveals that Naseem is a closeted gay man which illuminates his daily outward persona as a beard of the highest order.

We root for these people to find their way and the show walks a delicate balance between maintaining what is true to oneself while changing just a little bit in order to better fit in with today’s society.

Notice how Ramy himself hasn’t even come up yet? His story of course runs throughout the season but he is so lost and nearly beyond hope. He’s suffering from undiagnosed depression while constantly trying to fill the void with either sex or pats on the back. He doesn’t just want to get better and be better but he also needs to be told that he is better. It’s tough to watch. He gets so many things right but never quite addresses his lack of stakes in anything he attempts. Ramy’s problem is that he lets himself off the hook at every turn. He’s in love with his cousin and eventually cheats on his fiancée the night before his wedding. This is all horrendously selfish but upon the end of his wedding night, having gone through with his marriage and even taking his new wife’s virginity, he decides to come clean. It’s the single most fucked up slide into wrongheadedness that Ramy has ever engaged in. Mahershala Ali, Ramy’s now father in law, shows up the next morning and brutally takes Ramy to task. He’s so overcome with grief and anger that he almost physically hits Ramy. It is a testament to his inner strength that he withholds and leaves Ramy to his own dark thoughts.

I will always applaud a story that is unafraid to take its main character to task for their failings. There’s never any room for hero worship — that train of thought breeds bad stories. Here, Ramy reels from his family’s cutting remarks, to his wife leaving, to his brutal take down at the hands of his father in law, to the even more brutal take down at the hands of his cousin. Ramy ends up alone in the abandoned, shit covered car left by the homeless soldier he tried to help earlier in the season. He’s adrift with nowhere to turn. It’s sad but deserved. I, for one, cannot wait for season 3 to see if Ramy can pull himself out of this whole he has put himself in.

Ramy provides us as American a story as can be. One full of humor and drama in equal measure, just like our own daily lives.

Next week, let’s tackle Edward Norton’s film adaptation of Motherless Brooklyn. Until then, love each other.

Little Fires Everywhere — Kerry Washington FTW

Little Fires Everywhere had me riveted from episode one. This show (and book it was based on) has its finger firmly on the pulse of America right now. Unfortunately, a story about racial tension and white privilege will likely be timely for years to come but it cannot be overstated how much more intense this story is right now. It opened my eyes to things I know that I have done in my life, shed light on it, and now I can hopefully do better. What I’m talking about is how in the 1990s we white folk went through a period of trying to show how woke we were by openly engaging in casual racism and culture theft.

What am I on about?

How we collectively pretended that we didn’t see color. Sure, we meant well but that doesn’t make what we did the right thing to do. What we did instead is rob the Black community of their identity. We tried to whitewash everything about the Black community to make it seem more like our own. I’m ashamed to have done that and it’s born from ignorance. This is why I don’t immediately drag people who are ignorant. The thing with ignorance is that as long as it isn’t willful, it can be corrected. As long as a person is willing to listen and learn, they can evolve into a better human being. We are all ignorant to certain things, it’s how we deal with it when we become or are made aware of it that makes all the difference.

Little Fires Everywhere is all about white privilege and how white people, in their majority, have always tried to use their power in order to make things more white — even when they “mean well.” We can get into the nitty gritty of the plot details but that is really just window dressing to the real, actual themes of the show (and book). Instead, we should just focus on the marvelous eight episodes as a whole. I’ll point out that the cast is great, top to bottom. The kids all shine and give us a real depiction of adolescence and the emotional minefield children must navigate.

What I will focus on is our two leads: Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon. As Mia, Kerry Washington gives one of the greatest performances I have ever seen, film or television or even stage. Watch her face and body language in each scene — her pauses, her everything. It is a masterclass. She shows us the inner turmoil of her character, her eyes give us glimpses right into her soul. I’ve always been a student of an actor’s eyes and Kerry Washington gives such a nuanced performance of such shattering quality, it borders on supernatural. She is everything in this show. Of course, a great hero needs a great villain and Witherspoon brings the heat as Elena, Mia’s almost friend turned mortal enemy. Witherspoon adds layers upon layers to her character as she crashes before us, out of control due mostly to her dissatisfaction with how she’s settled into this life of privilege. She oozes the diabolical charm of someone who’s used to getting not only what they want but getting everyone around them to do what she decrees. She’s a top-notch foil.

There’s more to say but it would be nothing more than banging on about the same recurring themes. The filmmakers have created a work that is a more effective dissection of community race relations than a film like The Help could ever hope to achieve. This should be required viewing for everyone, especially high schoolers. It’s time the curriculum was updated. This work would serve everyone well and hopefully breed out the ignorance this show highlights.

I was and still am astonished by the eight episodes we received. Kerry Washington deserves every single acting award she could possibly be eligible for and then some more for good measure. Also, Elena’s kids are all assholes.

SPOILER ALERT

You’re mad at your mom so you burn your fucking house down? Grow up, you over privileged little shitheads.

That’s it for this week. Next week I’ll dive into the documentary, The Painter and the Thief. Until then, love each other.

Tales From The Loop Explores The Human Condition With Some Robotic Twists

I always get excited when I see new, original, smart science fiction. Amazon’s Tales From The Loop definitely fits this bill. Over eight episodes, it tells the story of a town surrounding a device known as The Loop. This device allows amazing and seemingly impossible things to become possible.

Each episode follows a new character and is set in various time periods of this town. Characters overlap and the star of one episode may turn up as a secondary character in another. The storytelling is slow and methodical but ultimately deeply rewarding. The entire production of the show is top-notch. In particular, the filmmakers make great use of sparse and somber music and imagery. Following that, the cinematography is breathtaking, sweeping us off our feet as we follow the wind of these stories.

Each episode catches its characters in life altering situations. Nothing will ever be the same for any of them. Instead of specifics, the show uses its devices to explore bigger themes. My notes are littered with questions as I focused on discovering these themes and why we see them when we do. Loneliness. Displacement. Identity. Time. The fleeting nature of young love. Loss. Fear. Helplessness. Hope. Grief. Sacrifice. Tales From The Loop encompasses so much of the human condition.

The cast is universally great but I want to point at another stellar turn by Jonathan Pryce. He’s the man in charge of the loop and his big episode comes at the halfway point of the season. He is, as usual, Marvelous. This episode in particular hit me very hard. It made me cry, sob actually, as it reminded me of when my great grandmother died — a person I was very close and connected to.

The season falls off a bit as the second half winds down but hits us with a wonderful one-two punch with its final two episodes. We get an awesome story set almost solely on an island which fills in some much needed backstory for one of the characters. And then the finale is sad and bold in equal measure, all about the sacrifices we make for love and learning.

Over all, this is a fantastic series and I hope Amazon sees fit to allow these filmmakers to tell us more Tales From The Loop. I’ll leave you with a quote:

That’s what makes things special — they don’t last.

Next week, Little Fires Everywhere. Until then, love each other.

DEVS – Alex Garland’s Brilliant Look Into Past Trauma And Our Impending Future

I am a huge fan of Alex Garland. I have always found his writing to be thought provoking and invigorating. 28 Days Later is one of my favorite horror films of all time and his novel, Coma, is one I re-read on a regular basis. He has broken into directing in the last decade and it comes as no surprise to me that he’s quickly established himself as a clear and unique voice in Hollywood. Dredd rocked and Ex Machina blew the world away. With Annihilation, he deftly adapted the first book of Jeff VanderMeer’s astonishing Area X trilogy into one of the best films of 2018.

Now that we have that out of the way we can get down to the meat of this post. Devs.

Devs is a tv show Alex Garland wrote and directed in its entirety. It aired earlier this year on FX and is easily a landmark achievement in not only science fiction but any genre of storytelling.

What’s so great about it? Everything. I’m not going to dive into many details about the plot because anyone willing to take this journey should do so as blind as possible. It is set at some point in our future where automation has taken over our lives. Tech has evolved to the point that it has caused unemployment to spike up to sixty percent. We live in an age where we are beginning to see the future Garland is showing us as a possible real thing. This is scary. This is also merely window dressing in this rich and rewarding story.

The real story is about a young woman who works for a giant tech company and investigates the disappearance and questionable suicide of her boyfriend, who happens to work at the same company. There is a secret project called Devs and what exactly they are up to is the central mystery of this series. Do we get answers? Yes we do and they are so much more profound than we could possibly imagine. This series rocked me to my core. It plays like a conspiracy thriller when it is actually using that to mask a story about trauma and grief. Devs is a slow burn that peels back layer after layer until we lose all sense of direction. It is a work of astounding confidence and brilliant ideas. We’ve seen works in the past that could execute one of these things but not all of them quite like this. It not only sticks the landing, it changes everything.

The young woman is played by Sonoya Mizuno, an actress about to hopefully become a household name. Garland loves her — he’s cast her in Ex Machina and Annihilation already and here he totally lets her loose. She is amazing — with a face that could tell a thousand stories.

Side note: She was also incredible in Netflix’s Maniac.

We also have Nick Offerman playing the co-lead as the head of this tech company. He is manipulative and borderline evil but is also suffering great loss while maintaining some type of humanity. It’s strange to find his presence and voice so comforting no matter what is happening on screen. The bottom line is that he is a man determined to play out the only hand he believes he has. There is a sort of twisted nobility in this.

All of the characters in the series are fully realized with motivations of their own. This is vital for a story like this — we have to care no matter what. I’m going to have to cut this relatively short because the more I write, the more I run the risk of spilling the beans. I don’t want to do that to anyone.

I will say this: the finale turns everything upside down and around again. Just when you think you have this figured out, Garland ups the intelligence ante and takes you where you secretly wanted to go — without you realizing you wanted it all along. I will die on the hill proclaiming this one of the greatest finales in television history and one of the most profound and deeply moving endings to a story, ever.

Hit print.

Next week, either Tom Hardy or Tales from the Loop — we’ll see. Until then, love each other.

The Last Of Us Part II – Love, Hate, And The World In Between

Love and hate are separated by an invisible barrier. The world of, The Last Of Us, makes this clear. These feelings we all have are seemingly polar opposites but in reality, they are boxed in with nothing but tissue paper. Love and hate are both irrational feelings that we cannot completely control — no matter how hard we may try. We learn to live with both of them and make the best life we can. Some of us are taught to give in to love while others are taught to be led by hate. The quicker we realize the lack of control we have over life, the quicker we can exist peacefully somewhere in the middle. Life is not easy and the only thing we have to hold onto is that precarious ledge our emotions keep us tap dancing on.

I played TLOU2, weaving through a post-apocalyptic landscape, while also playing hide-and-seek with my feelings. To sum up, it was a harrowing and unforgettable experience. I finished, put down the controller, re-joined the world, and then immediately returned for a second run. I wasn’t done sorting through myself and what this story had to offer. I was always going to write about this game but I’ve realized that I need to do this now because I cannot function as a writer with this story still churning up my brain. There is no way for me to properly discuss this story without diving into ***MASSIVE SPOILERS***, so be warned: I am going to talk about it all. I urge you to return to this post at a later date if you have any plans to play this game. This post will still be here.

Again, MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD

Okay

You’ve been warned — let’s dive in.

FIRST, SOME CONTEXT

The story of the original was about a fourteen year old girl, born years after society fell to a destructive virus, journeying across the country in order to reach a hospital. She was immune to the virus and was the only person known to be immune. This girl, Ellie, grew up without much of a family. She was entrusted to a smuggler named Joel for this journey. Joel was a man who watched his young daughter get murdered at the onset of the outbreak. This event broke him and forged an armor around him. Over the course of their journey, Ellie and Joel became a family — the first ever family for Ellie and the first in decades for Joel. Upon reaching the hospital and finding out that Ellie would have to die in surgery in order to potentially create a cure for the virus, Joel snapped. He could not abide losing another daughter. Joel, through grief, slaughtered the entire hospital in a bid to save Ellie. He left with her and when she asked what happened, he lied and told her there was no cure — that everything was a failure. That story ended with Ellie sighing and saying, “okay.” You could see in her eyes that she knew Joel was lying about something but she let that hang for the time being.

That game was revolutionary in the way that it flipped our perception of the hero, Joel. The player ended up complicit in Joel’s despicable acts. His actions were borne from love and grief with a heavy dose of selfishness. To this day, I don’t agree with Joel’s actions but I know that I would have done the same.

ONWARD TO THE MAIN EVENT

I could also spend thousands of words discussing the game mechanics and how they’ve evolved in the years since the first game. I could write about the verticality of the environments, the free flowing combat, streamlined crafting, and the beautiful guitar mini-game (you should YouTube what some people are doing with this mini-game, it is extraordinary).These are all used effectively to further immerse us in this world. The camera is visceral and only shows us the bare minimum at any given moment, which keeps the tension at a maximum. The world is dangerous like I have never experienced before. Every single enemy interaction is brutal, nasty, and leaves the player feeling at sea. The 3D audio, ratchets everything up further, with creaks, clicks, groans, gurgles, roars, gasps, screams, gunfire and the like coming from all, yet singularly specific, directions.

WE BEGIN WITH A GUT PUNCH

The sequel begins in Jackson, the rebuilt town Ellie and Joel returned to at the very end of the first game. They’ve settled into a routine and life is mostly peaceful. Through dialog, we understand that Joel and Ellie aren’t on the best of terms. Ellie, now nineteen and very much her own person, is still grappling with the fallout from the events at the hospital nearly four years prior. She heads out on patrol with her girlfriend Dina when they get waylaid by a snowstorm. They soon find out that Joel and his brother Tommy aren’t responding to radio calls and so Ellie heads out to find them. This is when we change perspective and begin playing as a new character named Abby. We don’t know who she is or what she and her group are doing here but we quickly realize they’re here for Joel. We can infer that she must have a connection to the group from the hospital and we begin to fear the worst. At the same time, this make sense because when you flip a coin, there is always a tails to the heads. The people Joel killed out of his love for Ellie would also have their own people willing to do the same for them. Abby is quickly beset by a horde and is rescued by, of all people, Joel and Tommy. They escape the horde and end up at an abandoned mansion Abby and her group have been holed up in. This is where things get dark. Joel realizes these people know who he is and there is no good reason for that. Before either Joel or Tommy can react, they are attacked — Tommy knocked out and Joel taking a shotgun blast to his legs. Abby then proceeds to beat Joel with a golf club.

We regain control of Ellie again as she reaches the mansion, sneaks in, hears the commotion in the basement and rushes into action. We expect to save the day but are horrified when Ellie is immediately bested and held down as Joel’s torture continues. She calls out to Joel and begs him to get up. And then Abby kills him. It made me sick to my stomach. I wasn’t upset that Joel died because in this harsh world, it’s not exactly surprising when someone doesn’t die of old age. The thing that got to me was Ellie’s pain — it was primal in the most horrible and wrenching manner. Abby leaves Ellie alive because her mission is finished and because, as we will learn later, the cycle of love and hate demand it. Now, I’m not going to rehash the entire plot of this game because that would take forever and also it’s not necessary. The plot is secondary to character and I’ve spoken at great length on my site about my preference for stories told this way. It’s not the what but the why.

THE HERO OF ONE STORY CAN OFTEN BE THE VILLAIN OF ANOTHER.

This is an obvious theme and one we get dosed with early on in the game. What none of us expected was how this story would deepen our understanding of this theme as the rest of the events unfold. We play the first half of the game as Ellie on her odyssey of revenge. She is going to punish those responsible for Joel’s death. We find out quick that Joel’s brother Tommy is already on the same quest for his own satisfaction. What we’re shown over the next dozen hours or so of game is Ellie losing the rational and human pieces of herself. She falls down the rabbit hole because of love and drowns in a pool of hate. She has no room for anything else. She is vicious, cruel, and undeterred by anything. She’s joined by her girlfriend Dina, and later, her friend Jesse. We watch as Ellie begins to unravel and even lose sight of the relationships she holds so dear — the same feelings and connections which bore so much love and happiness to begin with. Ellie kills her way all over Seattle as she fights the militarized group known as the WLF, (aka wolves), the group Abby is a part of. Ellie also has violent encounters with another group of “enemies” known as the Seraphites. They are a group of religious zealots who mainly fight the WLF over territory and philosophy of life. By the time Ellie and Abby confront one another again, we are numb to the killing and exhausted from it. We are in desperate need of catharsis.

BONDED FOR LIFE

Leading up to this point, the story is broken up by sections of Ellie remembering past events with Joel. They are mostly tender moments of the two of them strengthening their bond. Ellie never had a family and even though it isn’t biological, Joel is very much her father. They love each other like only the truest sense of family can love. Through these flashbacks, we begin to appreciate how Ellie could succumb to hate so fully. This in no way excuses her actions but given our perch and availability to be objective, we can be honest with ourselves in understanding that we could easily follow in Ellie’s footsteps. Like I said at the top, it is an invisible barrier. There’s further context that some later flashbacks reveal. Ellie always suspected Joel had lied about something. She revisits the hospital and finds out what happened. She questions Joel and later doesn’t let him off the hook, demanding the truth. Joel gives her what she asked and she hates him for it. Their relationship is seemingly severed. It’s just about the most upsetting thing I could think of, how irrational love can lead to equally irrational hate. Except Ellie finds the bond between her and Joel unable to be severed. We learn why guitars mean so much to her, Joel taught her how to play and it was something they both cherished. The guitar keeps her tethered to him and the love they have for each other. She needs this not just to fuel her rage but also as a lifeline protecting her from being completely consumed by the hate she feels. We don’t have to agree with her actions in order to empathize with them. She is in so much pain and it it hurts to see her like this. At first, we think her revenge is fueled by guilt because she wasn’t able to reconcile with Joel but we later learn that she went to Joel and told him she wanted to try and forgive him. They had reconciled. It then becomes obvious that guilt plays a different part in this story. Ellie wasted so much time hating a man she loved more than anything in this world. Ellie thought they had more time and was robbed of the only family she ever had. When Abby killed Joel, she killed a piece of Ellie’s heart.

TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

After Ellie and Abby confront each other, we’re left with a cliffhanger. Abby has killed Jesse, Tommy is possibly dead on the floor, and her gun is trained on Ellie. Cut to black.

We then pick up with a flashback scene of Abby and her father. By the end of this flashback we learn that not only was Abby a part of the group at the hospital (the Fireflies) but that her father was the doctor responsible for creating a cure through Ellie. Joel killed him. This moment flips the entire story on its head. We suddenly have so much more insight into who Abby is as a person and what fueled her own rage. Abby spent the subsequent years with the WLF, receiving military training, and preparing for the day she could avenge her father’s murder. Like I said, the hero of one story…

What we learn over the next dozen hours, playing as Abby, is that she has her own family of friends. They care for each other. They are not that much different from the people of Jackson. Love leads to hate and the cycle continues. Abby becomes embroiled in a fight against the Seraphites and is nearly killed in horrific fashion by them until being saved by a couple of Seraphite outcasts. They bond, especially Abby and the young boy named Lev. This closely mirrors the relationship growth of Joel and Ellie from the first game. We begin the game hating Abby and end the game loving her because we understand her motives and pain. There is enough pain and suffering in this world that one’s sun could be blotted out by it. Abby gives in to her hate but as her story unfolds, love creeps back in and begins to take hold. We learn about her relationships with her friends, namely Owen, Mel, Manny, and Alice the dog. She lets Lev into her heart and begins to care about him as well. So when she finds out most of her friends are dead, the switch is primed. She watches Manny die right in front of her, killed by a revenge-fueled Tommy. She finds Alice, Mel, and Owen dead — then finds evidence it was Ellie. This sets Abby off once again on a quest for vengeance. She is now at odds with the WLF because she’s become so protective of Lev, a Seraphite. Abby is beset on all sides by people attempting to cause harm to her and those she loves. We also see that she cannot quite shake a bit of humanity because Lev has had such a remarkable influence on her mindset. She’s forever changed. These two women, Ellie and Abby, are so full of pain, it hurts us to see them bested by these feelings. Pain lends itself to hate by holding your hand and walking you to the threshold. Some find the strength to turn back while others give in to the false promise of catharsis.

We end up back at the cliffhanger moment and, playing as Abby, engage in a boss fight of sorts against Ellie. It puts us in a rocky boat as we’re fighting against the one person we’ve always fought for. Abby defeats Ellie but lets her live. This is different than the encounter early in the game because this is Abby again fueled by hate except she doesn’t allow it to fully consume her. Abby chooses to go live a peaceful life and warns Ellie to not come for her again. At a glance, this seems like a typical warning but when you dig deeper, it is more of a recognition of oneself in another. Abby now sees that her and Ellie are one and the same, sees the same hate but also the love. We come to realize that Abby’s warning is more philosophical. By the end of this section, the wolf has become the shepherd.

This all requires a mature understanding of life, what we hold dear, and the limits we are required to exceed. The only way out is through and when you’re walled in by love and hate, that particular hallway is a precarious jaunt. The game exemplifies this by repeated journeys down the same hallway as Abby and staircase as Ellie.

YOU GO. I GO. END OF STORY.

We can’t go further without discussing some of the side characters. This is part of what makes this story and world so rich and rewarding. Dina is Ellie’s girlfriend and after Joel, the most important person in her life. Dina supports Ellie but is also there to try and keep Ellie from being consumed by vengeance. In fact, Ellie’s darkest moments are when Dina is not around. There’s a saying: No man is an island. This is another theme TLOU2 deals with in depth. We are all made up of our friends and family. What I mean by that is that left to our own devices, each of us are not at our best. We are taught and continue to be taught, every day, by those we surround ourselves with. Dina teaches Ellie to see light in the darkness — she helps Ellie be the best possible version of herself. Where Ellie has Dina, Abby has Owen. This is particularly evident in Abby’s flashbacks where Abby and Owen run the gamut of blossoming love. In the present, they are no longer together, mostly because they remind each other of their hateful actions against Joel. They still have love for each other but it’s no longer enough to hold them together as a couple. Ellie relies on her loved ones to keep her away from the dark side while Abby shuts them out in order to protect them from her own darkness. It’s different but both women operate from a foundation of love. We then spend so much time with Lev. He is a stand-in for a younger Ellie. Abby becomes Joel and her change is brought about by a new understanding of what she, like Joel, would do for someone she primally needs to protect.

CATHARSIS

Ellie heeds Abby’s warning and is satisfied to live peacefully on a little farm she and Dina have set up. They’re raising a little boy together and also a flock of sheep. Ellie still suffers from PTSD over what happened to Joel. She doesn’t feel whole but is still willing to try and live this new life. A visit from a still alive but handicapped Tommy changes everything. Tommy has lost most of himself to hate. He is even angry with Ellie because she is unwilling to finish the job against Abby. We don’t want Ellie to listen to Tommy but she does and sets out one more time.

Ellie is desperately searching for the closure she can’t find — it is like an open wound. She tracks down Abby in California, only to discover she and Lev have been captured by a sadistic group of people who call themselves the Rattlers. They enslave anyone they find in order for themselves to live in comfort. They torture and crucify those who disobey. By the time Ellie reaches Abby, it’s been months. They travel along the beach together with Lev until they reach two boats. Abby and Lev are emaciated from their months of abuse while Ellie is in bad shape do to her being impaled earlier by a trap set by the Rattlers. They at first seem content to go their separate ways — Abby and Lev to Catalina Island and Ellie back home. Ellie sets her pack in the boat and sees a flash of Joel dead on that basement floor. She gives in to hate again and tells Abby they need to finish it. Abby says no because she’s seen what the cycle does and has made it out the other side. Ellie threatens Lev’s life and Abby capitulates in order to protect the only person she has left to love. They fight in the surf, brutally and ugly, until Ellie pins Abby’s head under water. It is then that another image of Joel flashes in her mind — Joel on his porch with his guitar. It’s the same moment when Ellie says she wants to try and forgive him. Ellie finally lets go and lets Abby and Lev go while she sobs in the water. The cycle is finally broken. We last see Ellie back at the farm, now abandoned, and she plays Joel’s guitar once last time before setting it down and beginning her trek back to Jackson — back to her family and back to love. She let the guitar go and with that she let Joel go. By being able to do this, she let the hate go and gave herself a better foundation to rebuild her life. It is an astonishing moment in a game/story brimming with astonishing moments. And it’s here where we gain further understanding of what the story has been telling us all along with some of its imagery. The opening screen is a boat in the water, we at first think this is representing the calm before the storm but ultimately reveals itself as a metaphor for the two leads being at sea. Once the game is finished, the opening screen changes to the boat beached on Catalina Island. Following this thread, we also realize that every loading screen we see is a lesson in searching for the light. Most of the screen is shrouded in darkness while a group of moths gather around the lone light source. We are all like the moths, desperately trying to flee the dark.

LOVE IS STRONGER THAN HATE

By the end of this story, we are left loving characters at odds with each other because their stories are largely like our own. Everyone has a story and everyone begins a new story every day. Most of us get the opportunity to change our lives for the better and try and leave this world better for it. I played the first game in a world where I had no children in my life. I still found it engrossing and one of the best stories ever told in a video game. There is a reason HBO has secured the rights in order to make it into a new series. Shortly after, my family began having children. I am now an Uncle to five girls and one boy and my entire world is different. Being around children is like being a time traveler — I get to watch them experience millions of things for the very first time. It reminds me of how I grew up and I am in constant reflection of my own experiences. I didn’t know I could possess the love in my heart that I now possess and both stories now hit harder. My understanding of this world has deepened and more importantly, I better understand the person I am and the person I want to be. I love Ellie and Abby because I see myself in them. I see them with people they love and who love them back — people they would go to the ends of the earth for and vice-versa. They are awkward around those they don’t know and can be easily consumed by their own feelings. These two brave and powerful women each found their light and I try every day to follow their lead. Great art cannot make the world a better place on its own, it can only take our hand and lead us to the threshold. It is up to us to choose the proper doorway. Just because love and hate share an invisible barrier doesn’t mean we’re destined to be lost.

Next week, it really is DEVS time. Until then, love each other.