Alicia is called to court one morning by Diane for another Dipple case. (For the uninitiated, Dipple is the Republican that has manipulated Diane into tying herself in knots playing “devil’s advocate” for various conservative causes.) In court, Diane’s on her own till Alicia shows up (late from a rendezvous with Jason and grinning to herself like a college kid who missed the first five minutes of a lecture because she was getting laid).
Another day, another controversial death on The 100. Regardless of your opinions on the two major character deaths that have occurred in the last three episodes, there’s no denying that The 100 has inspired a ton of constructive discourse (as well as some counterproductive ad hominem attacks) about social issues, the responsibility of media creators to their fans, and the role of violence on television. Even when it makes mistakes, The 100 is thoughtful enough to stimulate important conversations, which I would say is commendable in itself.
All right. Let’s do this. Continue reading →
Previously on Nashville: Maddie told Frankie’s daughter Cash that she and Colt went all the way, and Cash told her to write it in a song; Avery and Juliette got divorced and went public, while Layla gloated in the background; Luke invited an old friend back on tour with him; Will got harassed and attacked when he first tried to perform in Nashville; a girl named Vita showed up and Rayna thought her voice was amazing, but it turned out she slept in a car in a parking lot and Frankie thinks she made off with $500 from the bar.
Morning at the James mansion, and Rayna’s staring into the distance over coffee. She says she wants to get to the bottom of the issue, and asks if Frankie could’ve miscounted. Deacon says Frankie’s sure the money’s gone. Both Deacon and Rayna have tried to call Vita, and she hasn’t answered. Not a good sign! But being the irrepressibly optimistic judges of human nature that they are, they agree to see if Vita shows up for her scheduled meeting with Rayna, or her scheduled shift at the Dead Sister Bar. (I refuse to call it the Beverly and have rechristened it to a more fittingly rock’n’roll title.)
Why did the morning rise to breakSo great, so pure a spell,And scorch with fire the tranquil cheekWhere your cool radiance fell?
Poetry so often conflates springtime with rebirth, renaissance, hope, and the like, but Emily Brontë’s work begs to differ. The narrator of “Ah! Why, Because the Dazzling Sun” spends the poem shutting her eyes tightly (and vainly) against the “blood-red” light that “throbs with her heart” and destroys her peace. And as she says in “Fall, leaves, fall”:
I shall smile when wreaths of snowBlossom where the rose should grow;I shall sing when night’s decayUshers in a drearier day.
Brontë’s poetry seems keenly aware of the Icarus myth: her relationship to daylight and springtime springs from an understanding that sunlight is not the product of a benign reflection, a consumptive fire.
From “Ah! Why, Because the Dazzling Sun” again:
O Stars and Dreams and Gentle Night;O Night and Stars return!And hide me from the hostile lightThat does not warm, but burn—
Previously on The 100: Pike was elected chancellor, Bellamy helped him massacre a peacekeeping army of Grounders in their sleep, and a barricade and kill order was placed on Arkadia. Also, the entire fandom imploded, but “Terms and Conditions” took a break from that regularly scheduled programming to focus on fixing the Bellamy debacle. Continue reading →
Adversion 