Author / Janes

Rayna looks freaked out while an angry man behind her holds onto her and a gun points towards them both.
by Janes

Taking The Leap: Our All-Time Top (or Bottom) Jumping-the-Shark Moments

You may or may not have noticed that we have stopped recapping Nashville, and it’s not because we’re lazy and/or behind (although that’s often the case). It’s because–and we’re sad to say this–Nashville has jumped the shark, an especially impressive feat for a show that was already about feuding country singers. So instead of recapping a show that has become too ridiculous even for our teen-soap-loving sensibilities, we’re going down the list of the best (or, more accurately, worst) jumping-the-shark moments that we’ve seen on television.

There are only three (loose) rules for something to qualify as jumping-the-shark: 1) It has to be f*cking ridiculous, in direct proportion to how ridiculous the show was to begin with; 2) it should preferably be a ratings ploy; and 3) it has to mark the point-of-no-return that begins a downward spiral, an evolution into a significantly stupider and/or offensive show that we never would have watched if we weren’t already attached to the characters. Enjoy.

SPOILERS ABOUND! Continue reading →

by Janes

Ranking the All-Time Personal Growth of the ‘Girls’

After six seasons of controversies, hot takes, empowering female nudity, depressing racial politics, and a few near-perfect bottle episodes, Girls has finally taken its final bow. Girls grew immensely over the years, transforming from a tragically self-conscious drama about privileged brats into a slightly more self-aware and compassionate story about (still privileged) young women adulting for the first time. But while the show itself became vastly more mature, the same cannot be said for all of its protagonists. Here are our final personal growth rankings for all of the Girls characters, based on their respective farewells in the last three episodes. Continue reading →

by Janes

Personal Growth Rankings: Girls 6×05 “Gummies”

I have to say, I was definitely a naysayer about Adam and Jessa’s movie, but now I’m a believer. Not in the sense that I think the movie itself will be good; it still looks like a corny and even more twee version of 500 Days of Summer. It checks all the boxes of the worst kinds of indie movies: a manic pixie dream girl (because OF COURSE that’s how Hannah looks from Adam’s perspective), stereotypes about mental illness (“My head feels so noisy, I just want it to stop!!”), a dysfunctional relationship, and a cute yellow sundress.

But I’m on board with the movie as a plot device, if only because it gives us a hilariously meta spoof of Girls‘ early seasons. Hannah clumsily dancing half-naked to an ironically cheerful song, Hannah and Adam being ridiculously melodramatic about their relationship (“I don’t care if you ruin my life, at least you’ll have been in my life”), and Hannah wanting to be treated like shit by a guy, because that’s just so painfully edgy.

But anyway, let’s get to the personal growth rankings: Continue reading →

by Janes

Personal Growth Rankings: Girls 6×04 “Painful Evacuation”

Well, that was unexpected. Girls‘ final season just took a completely different direction in its fourth episode, courtesy of a huge reveal that was surprising by virtue of being entirely too conventional. All we need now is a wedding, a funeral, and a tearful going away party, and we’ll have the perfect ending to a very un-Girls-like 90s sitcom.

All right, let’s get to the personal growth rankings: Continue reading →

by Janes

11 Unpopular Opinions About Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Today is the twentieth anniversary of one of the shows that changed my life (or, since I started watching when I was nine, determined it): Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In so many ways, Buffy is the quintessential 90s show (mostly because of the so-bad-they’re-good outfit choices), but two decades later, it still stands up as a feminist, literary work of art, one that spawned an entire academic field, not to mention an impassioned, opinionated fandom.

There are a few things almost all Buffy fans can agree on: seasons 2, 3, and 5 were the best, Dawn was the fucking worst, and no one cares about Riley. But there are at least a few aspects of Buffyhead dogma that I can’t get behind. Here are my eleven most unpopular opinions about Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Continue reading →

by Janes

“American Bitch” Is Girls’ Most Important Episode Yet

Girls has always been a divisive show, both among the general population and among feminists. I’ve always defended it as an important, if wildly imperfect, show, for all of the usual reasons. Girls portrays women as equally flawed, crass, and indelicate as men (and sometimes, nearly as entitled), and displays the nude female form in a refreshingly desexualized way. But, as many have noted, it is extremely lacking in racial diversity, and is outright racist when a POC does actually appear. And considering how horribly spoiled and myopic all of the characters are, the show often appears to be more concerned with capturing the voice of the stereotypical privileged millennial than that of oppressed women.

“American Bitch” doesn’t change any of that, exactly, but it did single-handedly justify the show’s existence. If you’re going to watch one episode of Girls, make it this one. Not only because it’s conveniently a standalone, but because it’s a damn near perfect half-hour of television that is essentially rape culture in a bottle. Continue reading →

by Janes

Personal Growth Rankings: Girls 6×02 “Hostage Situation”

I can’t say enough good things about “Hostage Situation.” It was everything we love about Girls–dysfunctional coming-of-age moments, even-more-dysfunctional female friendships, hilarious one-liners about hipsters and the Pacific Northwest. And on top of all that, the entire episode took the form of a horror spoof that was simultaneously hilarious and terrifying. Not scary in the sense that you think Desi will actually kill anyone, but in the way that you can already imagine Hannah telling the story in hushed tones at writers’ conferences for the rest of her life.

Here’s a ranking of all of the Girls‘ character growth, and trust me, I was as surprised as anyone else by the winner: Continue reading →

by Janes

One Step Forward, One Million Steps Back: Girls 6×01 “All I Ever Wanted”

For its first four seasons, the characters on Girls, much like the show itself, took pride in occupying the space between self-aware, snarky privilege and straight-up myopic narcissism. Then, in season five, new life was breathed into the show when almost every single one of the characters underwent some sort of growth. That growth may have been faltering and expressed in dysfunctional ways (Hannah breaking up with her terrible boyfriend by jumping out of the car during a road trip, Jessa going to school with Adam’s money when they had been dating for about two minutes, Marnie divorcing Desi after sleeping with her heroin-dealing ex), but it was there, and that was enough to convince me that the show had been worth watching. Continue reading →

by Janes

All of the Nashville Characters’ Real-Life Counterparts

There are many reasons you should be watching Nashville–Hayden Panettiere’s fierce performance, the relatively progressive politics, Connie Britton’s hair–but one of the most distinct pleasures is the soundtrack, which manages to represent almost all of the archetypes of country music. Down-home hillbilly country is mostly left out (unless the detested Vita comes back), but otherwise it has everything from Juliette’s bubblegum pop country to Zoey’s Southern soul country to Avery’s weird punk country. And best of all, most of the characters have obvious real-life counterparts who share the same artistry and/or biographical legend, and sometimes even the same face. Continue reading →

by Janes

If It Ends Here, The OA Sends a Seriously Terrible Message

After finishing the first season of The OA (once I was done wringing my hands and screaming “WTF did I just watch??”), I initially thought there shouldn’t be a second season. Flawed as the ending was (and oh, was it flawed), it was emotionally cathartic, and seemed to tie up all of the loose ends that the creators intended to tie up. I might be skeptical of the effectiveness of the finale’s ambiguity (more on that later), but it was clearly intended to be ambiguous.

Upon further reflection, I realized that it not only should have a second season, but that it needs one. The OA started off as a compelling, if slightly frustrating, show with an enormous amount of potential, which was then squandered with an ending that was at best incredibly messy and at worst embarrassingly silly. Given another installment, The OA could have a similar arc to The Leftovers, which had a frustratingly cryptic and misery-soaked first season, only to justify everything that came before in its transcendent second season. But with only one season, The OA will be remembered more like Lost, a show notable for its fascinating mode of storytelling that was ruined by terrible follow-through on its mythology. And worst of all, as it is, we’re left with an ending that–according to one interpretation–condones brainwashing and glorifies a cultish, groupthink mentality.

SPOILERS! ALL OF THE SPOILERS! Continue reading →