Wednesday 27 April 2011

Popular - Full of characters who make the mistake of angering the gods.

Popular: 1x04 Windstruck

Sometimes there are episodes that don’t really warrant a lengthy discussion, which is to be expected in a show that has more than twenty episodes per season. 


The theme of the episode is set up in the beginning: a news reporter announced the onset of the St Anna Winds which “are traditionally accompanied by a general feeling of chaos, confusion and unexpected romantic entanglements”, and a teacher explains hubris to the students: “Whenever a mortal dares to challenge the established hierarchy he or she suffer for their hubris. […] Arrogance is a dangerous trait. No matter how much power any mortal achieves he or she will ultimately be humbled by something larger and much more powerful. In other words: You dare to stride with the gods, you will be destroyed.” (a theme Popular returns to again and again, but sometimes a bit more elegant than in this episode). 

Sam challenges the established hierarchy by provoking a “man reaction” (oh Topher, how I miss you) when she sits on Josh’s lap – she (or rather Carmen, via gummy worm and unfortunately placed “sent to all” button that thankfully does not exist in real life) spreads the rumour throughout the school, which further endangers the already fairly strained relationship between Josh and Brooke. While Sam slowly realizes that she might have feelings for Josh (and eventually reveals that she used to have a crush on him when they were in Elementary School together), Brooke and Josh decide that they need to finally have sex to restore the order of things. Brooke comes back to her senses when she figures out that living up to expectations (Nicole’s, Mary Cherry’s, Josh’s locker room posse) isn’t the best reason to lose one’s virginity and flees the scene (“Do you think that I can have sex when I’m dealing with serious damage control.”), only to get drunk and clingy. 

Harrison challenges the status quo by being there when Brooke’s drunken clinginess seeks a willing target. He takes care of her when Nicole leaves – I think that Nicole isn’t as bad a best friend as you would probably expect from the teenage show clichés about the queen bee’s best friend, but we also don’t have the luxury of knowing her beyond her friendship with Brooke. While Sam entertains the notion that she has a genuine connection to the boy she used to have a crush on in Elementary School, Harrison deludes himself into thinking that the boy who takes care of the drunk girl is eventually going to replace the perfect Prom Queen boyfriend as long as he waits patiently. Once the St Anna wind and the confusion that comes with it have gone, so has the possibility of a different social order in which Sam and Josh are a couple and Harrison and Brooke are rekindling their ancient friendship and finding that they could be in love with each other. 

Lily once again has a storyline that is removed from what is happening to everyone else: her mother needs her to work because they are broke, and she can’t be picky about the job, so the animals rights activist and vegetarian is forced to work in a chicken shack, and failing to educate the costumers about the horrors of the meat packing industry and the perks of non-meaty side dishes. Eventually, she has to cave in because her economic situations doesn’t allow her to make a choice (“Lily, if you want to save the world, start with us.”, says her mother). In short: While everybody else is being a hormonal idiot, Lily deals with an actual problem that severely affects the quality of her life. 

Mean things people say about each other: 

Brooke tells Sam that she has an understanding with Josh that “No matter how thirsty either one of us gets we don’t drink out of the toilet.” – a level of meanness that kind of provokes Sam’s reaction afterwards – she seemed slightly morally obligated not to pursue her crush before, but afterwards, she doesn’t really see any reason not to. Also, Josh’s “Probably cause it’s the closest she’ll ever get to the real thing” and indicating that nobody expects Sam not to be a virgin because she is, well, Sam and not Brooke, aren’t exactly the most endearing things he’s ever said in his life. BUT SINCE HE IS THE REASONABLE STRAIGHT WHITE GUY WITH ALL THE HORRIBLE PROBLEMS I SUPPOSE WE MUST FORGIVE HIM (I do, however, very much enjoy how Sugar calls him out again and again, and rightfully so). 

Random notes: 

IT AROSE. Almost made it into the title. 

This section might as well be called “Nicole Julian’s inexplicable head” this time around. 

“If you need me to wear your underwear in my purse, it’s not a problem.”

“Do you want me to run out and get you something? Like Xanax, Valium, or Prozac. But Prozac you have to take for like a week.”

“If you’d rather talk to Mary Tyler Whore, that’s okay too.”

Nicole also has “the day and time marked on my filofax” (of when Brooke lost her virginity), which is obligatory in the Tony Schneider school of caring too much about your best friend’s sex life, or lack thereof. 

Whenever Sam daydreams about her French version of Josh, all I can think of is Les Jeunes de Paris, my favourite recent SNL sketch (both the one with Camille/Emma Stone and with Rachid Taha/Miley Cyrus). 

Now, I am not saying that the makers of this show are 12-year old teenagers who sat in the cutting room giggling when the scene was done, but the fact that a song with the lyrics “hard as a rock” started to play the moment Brooke put her head on Harrison’s lap can not be ignored. Vaguely reminded me of the “your lack of a gag reflex will come in handy when you’re older” line back when Glee was still maybe going to be a good show doing a good job at fucking with the League of Sexually Repressed and Constantly Outraged Adults or whatever they’ve called their little club. 

Harrison: What about boarding school in Switzerland? 
Sam: I don’t like their politics. 
Harrison: It’s a neutral country. 
Sam: There is no such thing.

Obligatory movie reference: 

Moonstruck, featuring Cher and Nicolas Cage. 

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