Fast 5: 'Obsession', 'The Drama', 'Odyssey', 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day', 'Sterling Point', 'Girl's Girl'

Episode 115 • 17th August 2026 • Femme & Furious: A Feminist Pop Culture Podcast • Julia Rose Portela | Feminist Pop Culture Podcast Host

Julia Rose Portela (: 00:00

Hey, hi, hello. Welcome back to Femme and Furious, where today's episode is technically a fast five, and yet if you count them as we go through, I have smuggled one. We have six properties that we are talking about today because math is just a social construct, honestly, and so is my ability to stick to a format that I have designed inside of my own head.

We have got two movies fighting for your monoculture attention. A Nolan epic that a classicist and a woman, by the way, is currently dragging within an inch of its life. We have a Spider-Man who desperately needs a hug and possibly a real pizza order. We have a horror movie that made me sleep with the lights on.

Some unhinged wedding confessions, a YA drama that is gunning hard for the CW throne,

And a book that will absolutely wreck all of the girly pops that are over thirty who want a little bit of nostalgia looking back on the politics of girlhood.

as always, we're doing this in two parts. First will be spoiler free pitches,

So you can get a little bite-sized taste of whether or not these properties are actually worth the hype. And then we will be diving headfirst into spoilers with all of my thoughts because I definitely have them, some of them unhinged. So go grab your comfort coffee.

Snuggle up and get cozy and let's dive in right after this.

All right babies, welcome back to Femme and Furious.

I am your host, Julia Rose Portela. This is our Fast Five segment. It happens once a month. This has evolved over the course of this show. And I am so happy that it finally is its own episode type. Thank you all so much for your feedback from the first episode that we did. So we've made some tweaks to support the vibe. and that's how we will be going through today's episode before we dive into all of the juicy goodness.

Let me tell you how you can support and follow the podcast. Go and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Comment, leave a review, give your girly pop some love, okay?

You can go follow the podcast on Instagram at FeminFurious Podcast.

However, just letting you know, I am on a personal Instagram break, and this is definitely interrupting what I do over on the Instagram account. So I'm not super active over there.

Now, if you're new to the Fast Five ideology, hi, hello. We love a fast and furious pun over on this podcast. Let me give you a rundown about how today's episode is going to work. The first part of this episode will be spoiler-free. So it will just give you a little

bite-sized tease about the properties that we are talking about today. Then you will have ample warning and ample sounds to transition us into the second half of the episode where we will dive into spoiler heavy thoughts. Here's what we are covering today Obsession, The Drama, Odyssey, Spider-Man Brand New Day, Sterling Point, and My Smuggle Girls Girl by Sonia Feldman.

So let's start with our spoiler free section and we are starting

with obsession.

Okay, so let's get one thing straight and two things gay. I do not like horror movies. I don't. this is like a canonical fact about me, and some of you have messaged me about covering things that have a more horror quality to it, and I always politely decline because it's not my thing. It's not my thing. There's spooky scary girls out there. It's funny. I do astrology and tarot professionally. It's not my thing.

So it is much to my dismay.

That my two teenage sisters love horror movies. And of course they do, because back when I was 16, I also loved horror movies. Because the immortality of youth is something to behold. We could watch scary movies because we we don't feel the weight of our mortality. But I am now an adult. Okay, I've seen things. Every day is a horror movie.

From the get go, I knew that I wanted to watch Obsession, even though I know that I don't like horror movies.

I just knew that the feminist aspects of this movie would be of peak interest to me. And it turns out very true. Here's why you should give it a go, even if you're like me, not a horror girly, and that's okay. We love you on this podcast.

I feel like everyone knows what this movie is about at this point.

So while I won't give away specifics, I will say that if somehow you escaped this movie being shoved down your throat by your algorithm, congratulations, don't know how you did it, you should watch this movie for the feminist psychological horror.

You should watch this movie in question, the archetype of the nice guy and what you think the nice guy is. This is something that we will cover on this podcast at some point in a deep dive, just not sure when we will slot it in, but it's it's on my list. And you should marvel at the cinematography. This was not a high budget.

I think they made this movie on like $750,000. That is like absolutely fucking nothing. and when you're watching the cinematography, you should pay attention to the shots that they are doing of Nikki. If you are not a horror fan, no need to worry. I was prepared to watch this entire movie through peaky fingers. But I found myself so compelled by the story that I didn't need to hide behind a pillow to take it all in.

So you should just watch it.

To be fair, the movie operates more like an Am I the Asshole Reddit post, but with a horror undertone to it. So if you like those posts, or if you like when that pops up on your Instagram theme when people read those posts out loud and dissect them and decide whether or not somebody is the asshole, you'll like this movie. I think you'll like this movie. To its credit.

The horror aspects are more cheesy than scary, and that's probably because they had a low budget and not a lot of special effects or CGI going on. the things that were actually quote unquote supposed to be the scary moment or like the jump scare moments.

I actually found myself laughing at those, probably because that is a defense mechanism. but despite the fact that they were not meant to be scary or spoofy, they were just a little bit cheesy, and again, that's because it was low budget, not because the movie is not good. It's just that those jump scares are not the thing that are actually scary in the movie. The things that are scary about the movie are played out in the cinematography in a far more interesting capacity.

So no matter where you fall on the spectrum of like how much you love horror, the numbers don't lie. this movie extended its run in theaters, staying the course for six weeks. A nearly unheard of feat at this point. And it raked in nearly five hundred million dollars compared to its seven hundred and fifty thousand dollar budget. So

A smash success, we can say. And the reason for its wild success is this. You will leave the movie thinking about it for a long time after the credits roll.

But heads up, bestie. This movie opens with the death of a cat. And while I'm typically anti-spoiler, I feel that I must warn the people that listen to this podcast or watch this podcast that this happens.

So justice for Nikki, but also the most horrific part of this movie was coping with the cat's death for the next hour and thirty minutes. I spent the rest of the evening with the lights on, snuggling with my co hosts Watson and Figgy

Julia Rose Portela (: 07:49

Alright, next up is the drama from writer-director Christopher Borgli, who has done a lot of stuff, but perhaps you would know Dream Scenario. And this movie had a wild press tour starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as a

Happily engaged couple whose wedding week goes completely off the rails after a night of drinks turns into a game of what's the worst thing you've ever done.

Here's why you should actually watch this one. It is a master class in showing you a visual representation of intrusive thoughts.

The movie explores empathy and how we process different information and it does it through its jagged, out-of-order film structure that puts you inside of the discomfort instead of just describing it to you.

It's a bit uncomfortable to watch in the way that the best social commentary is often uncomfortable.

You will have a reaction and you will want to talk about it with someone the second after the credits roll. So maybe don't watch this movie alone. My sisters and I also watched this movie together,

And as the credits started to roll, we were all like, We need some time to digest this. We all went off to do our own individual research and then came back the next morning at breakfast together to talk about it and dissect. Like you need some time to sit with it and process what you've just watched and how it lands with you

And I think that that's the best type of art.

This movie does show you something about yourself and what you value and how you think about things. And that is all that you are getting from me, spoiler free, because the entire movie hinges on what gets confessed inside of the game. So do yourself a favor and go into this movie blind. I somehow was not spoiled about this movie, and I would recommend that you do not Google anything about it if you already don't know what.

they talk about in this movie. Just go into it blind.

That way you will allow the emotional beats and the twists of the story to land without you having any preconceived notions about what you're going to watch.

Next up is the Odyssey, Christopher Nolan's mythic action epic, starring Matt Demon as Odysseus, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya Lu Pira Nyong'o Elliot Page, Robert Pattinson, and I'm sure many more that I'm not thinking of off the top of my head that round out this insane ensemble. I'm definitely missing some people in there. The story spans ten years, several gods, one incredible.

Increasingly unhinged journey home with the world's worst travel planner from the Trojan War. All shot on brand new IMAX film technology. Because of course it is. It's Christopher Nolan. Here's why you should actually go see this one. Ideally, on the biggest screen that your city has to offer.

This is Nolan doing spectacle in service of something genuinely mythic. The Trojan horse of it all was worth the ticket price alone, and I will die on this hill.

I have had an idea of what the Trojan horse was like in my mind from reading mythology for many years, and for whatever reason to be able to conceptualize it visually on screen in the way that Nolan did it, and to know that all of those men were genuinely packed inside of that Trojan horse all together.

hether that is Emily Wilson's: 2017

The one that Nolan himself has said influenced a ton of this adaptation.

Or if it's just refreshing yourself on Circe, Calypso, Helen of Troy, Clytemnestra all of the mythology before you go. It's homework, but it's the fun kind. the more mythology knowledge that you're walking in with, the more you'll be able to clock exactly what this movie keeps in and does really well, and what it changes, and what it flattens.

And that bestie is where the real tea is. This one has a whole cultural moment attached to it, including a genuinely public feud with the same Homer scholar.

And Girly Pop was dragging Nolan through the mud.

Monoculture is so back and the Odyssey is one of those movie events that is just genuine movie magic.

Speaking of monoculture, next up, Spider Man, brand new day.

With Tom Holland back at the number one slot in the box office, just crushing it as Peter Parker and his wife, who is also in the Odyssey, Zendaya as MJ.

Jacob is back as Ned. We've got John Bernthal in as

Frank or the Punisher and of course Sadie Sink making her MCU debut.

Taking place four years after the world has forgotten Peter Parker has ever existed. He is solo, he is full-time, he is exhausted, and a new threat is about to pull him back into everyone's orbit, whether he likes it or not. Here's why you need to go see this one. Ideally, in a packed theater, if you can find one. Is monoculture back? I saw this on a Monday afternoon and the theater was full. Full. And it is a Monday when I am releasing this.

And I will be going and seeing this movie again today, and I guarantee you it will be a maybe not packed theater, now that we're a few weeks out of its release, but definitely not an empty one. It feels incredible to be in a room like that again.

This is genuinely a great Spider-Man movie.

The fight choreography is fucking sick. A lot of the cinematography has that gorgeous splash page comic panel energy. And it earns every single one of its emotional beats instead of just borrowing them from the last three movies. And I did get choked up multiple times throughout this movie. So go see it big, go see it with people,

And then immediately send me all of your thoughts.

Because I want to talk to you about it.

Next up is Sterling Point. This is the new prime video series from Megan Park, who has done the Fallout, My Old Ass, etc.

And it stars Ella Rubin as Annie, who is going to be a freaking star one day. This girl was so good in this TV show. And she is a teenager who is living in New York City, who learns that her estranged, recently deceased grandfather left her an entire island in Canada, and along with it, a whole tangle of secrets that nobody has bothered to tell her about.

Here's why you should watch it. Amazon is clearly gunning for the CW crown here. And I mean that as a genuine, if not slightly back-handed, compliment because the tone in the melodrama of this show was giving CW to its core. To its core. This is a strong entry in the coming of age genre.

It is a show about teenagers who actually talk, act, look like, and respond like real teenagers.

The show has a queer community that's woven in with actual range and depth instead of just a token character as our queer representation. And we have a love triangle that trusts you to sit with the messy choices that are made in it instead of spoon feeding you the quote unquote correct answer. If you are somebody who has listened to this show and you were also

disappointed by every year after as an adaptation, you will love Sterling Point. It has the same vibe, it has high drama, even if the drama is a little far-fetched and somewhat cheesy, but there is a much stronger

Thread between these characters, the acting is superb, and there is really strong female characters.

So if you were missing all of that teenage summer nostalgia and angst that you were looking for inside of every year after, I promise you will get it in Sterling Point. It's delightful.

And last but not least is my smuggle to close us out,

Which is Girl's Girl, the debut novel from Sonia Feldman, following fifteen year old Mina's tight trio with her two best friends over one very hot Ohio summer.

And how one very unexpected kiss unravels everything they thought was solid between them. Here's why you should read this one, and I'm going to be very specific about who I think should read it. I do not genuinely think you can appreciate this book until you are in your 30s at the absolute earliest. This is a wonderful, precise examination of the politics of girlhood and friendship, the awakening of sexual desire, the social etiquette of growing up in a digital age.

And this was one of my favorite books that I've read all year no contest. So if you've got any critical distance from being 15 at all, go and pick this one up. It's going to hit you somewhere that you forgot you had a nerve.

And that is it for our spoiler-free section. If you are not down for spoilers, goodbye. Go check out the feed, see what other fun stuff I'm yapping about over there. You can dive into the Femme & Furious verse if you'd like.

And by the way, if required viewing or reading isn't your thing.

The Fast Five episode comes out once a month. And on alternating weeks, we have a deep dive that we'll be launching called the Femme Frame. So if you've been here since day one and you remember how my early episodes operated with the Femme Frame, that is

getting its own episode just like the Fast Five did. and the first one will be coming out two weeks from now. It will be a deep dive into the anti-feminist nature of the love languages. We will have episodes like this that don't require any

homework for you to do, you can just listen

They will be similar to my Curves in Culture episode or my bathroom bestie episode. They will be deep dives into a cultural or historical moment that pertains to women or the queer community. So

We're looking at love languages. If you have thoughts, feelings, opinions, please send them my way.

and for those of you leaving until next episode, goodbye. I love you. This is your spoiler warning. Spoilers, spoiler, spoilers, spoilers. Some of this stuff is still happening in theaters. So if you do not want to be spoiled about any of these movies, any of these books, any of these television shows, get out of here. Skidaddle.

If you want to be spoiled about certain things, like you've seen obsession and you want to hear my thoughts about it, you can always check the chapters and we'll break it down that way too. So it will always be clear in the chapters. You can kind of skip ahead to the next chapter if you don't want to listen to a specific spoiler about specific movies or properties. Okay.

So let's go in the same order. We're starting with obsession.

This movie had me thinking about the age-old question that the internet has supplied us, and that is what would a woman prefer, the man or the bear?

When the movie ended, I turned to my sister and I was like, Do you think that that's why they named him Bear? And as we were sitting there contemplating whether or not the choice was intentional, the more that I ruminated on it, the more I was like, How could it not be? Bear is our main character, and he is portrayed as the quote unquote nice guy, an archetype that I almost always hate because it's almost never true. Ever.

Unsurprisingly, in the wake of feeling rejected by his longtime crush Nikki, Bear makes a wish for her to love him more than anybody in the world. Even knowing this going in, I can't tell you the depth of fear that I felt, and almost none of it came from those typical horror elements.

So much of this movie is shot to completely erase Nikki.

There are shots of her body without her face. So for example, in the very beginning of the movie, when Bear is talking to her and she's standing outside of the car, she's standing. The way that the camera is shot is that we just see her body and her head is sitting somewhere above, you know, the top of the car. so there's never a face. It's like her face is completely covered throughout the movie with her hair, either her hair will

fall forward in her face and block her. she will take different objects to block her face, like the vase, for example, which is one of the most chilling parts of the movie that I can think of. But her face is covered with different objects. And so I started calling her no face Nikki. And she's a stand-in, right? No face Nikki is a stand in for every single girl who's ever been erased by the projection of a man's unwanted affection.

The fantasy of who she could be to him and not the reality of who she is. And that's what makes the story of Nikki so fucking chilling. I was viscerally nauseous watching this movie. From the sheer camaraderie that I felt with Nikki, and that I think most women will feel and identify with when they watch Nikki in this movie, and knowing that that horror exists in real life,

that plenty of men

think that Bear is just a guy who made a mistake. And how do we know this? Because the internet exists and we've seen that portrayed all over the internet by different men who don't understand how egregious and horrible what Bear has done.

The gap between man and bear is

gets blown up to a level that is so unfathomable to me in this movie that the point almost gets missed. Which is actually kinda funny if you think about it.

The movie makes it explicit that this is not a story of possession, that it is a brand new, overridden Nikki that fully hijacks Nikki's body while the real Nikki is still conscious somewhere in there, watching and perceiving and taking in everything that is happening. and how do we know this? Because there are moments of lucidity.

Where the real Nikki is able to come through. sometimes she leaves more cryptic messages for Bear. Sometimes she breaks through in these moments and she's expressing real fear. There's the moment where Bear calls to see if he could revoke the wish, and the mystery guy on the other end is like, Do you want to talk to Nikki? And it's just her screaming.

In absolute horror.

This is just like an abject fear that is distinct to all women.

This generalized erasure of all of us as indistinguishable from any other women in the eyes of men like Bear. The true horror is that Nikki could literally be any single one of us. Men like Bear do not actually want Nikki specifically. They want a woman because they have cast themselves as the good guy who is kind and desirable and therefore is owed something because of it.

And they cannot handle being rejected by a woman, any woman, and so they have decided that it is wrong for that woman not to want them. There is a line where Bear asks Nikki, What's so bad about being with me? And that's the whole archetype in one sentence that you don't think it's so bad to be with you, and so you just feel like you can override someone's agency.

He doesn't think that he is overriding her agency. He actually doesn't even think that this is a bad thing at all because in his head she's the one who's broken for not wanting him.

And then instead of recognizing that what he has done is wrong, he decides that she's crazy.

For this over the top behaviour, even though it's what he wished for.

And of course the face erasure that happens is just the visual language for that. That his fantasy is what is getting superimposed on top of her because Nikki is not actually the point. It's not actually about Nikki the person.

Okay, now let's talk about the cat of it all. Because genuinely, Bear should be in therapy. Men like Bear need therapy. We see him crying after the cat dies, but what does he actually say through his tears? It's why doesn't she love me?

So his dead cat is just another vessel for the rejection that he already feels from Nikki.

Does Wish Nikki then weaponize this grief when she digs the cat back up to comfort him and do many other things with the cat over the course of this movie? I don't want to talk about it. I don't know if I'd go that far, but I would say that the cat is a stand-in for companionship generally, and

The fact that the cat is dead at the beginning of the movie when this was his companion, I think is a huge

catalyst for what comes after. but again, do I think that Bear should just be in therapy to work through his issues? Yeah. and listen

Do I wish this cat plot was also not in the movie? Tremendously. But here's my actual hot take. The most unbelievable part of this entire movie is asking me to believe that Bear is a cat guy.

Cat people notoriously respect the boundaries of their cats. See all of the evidence of cat stuff that I have around me. I am a raging crazy cat lady, okay? And by extension, when people can respect the boundaries of their cats, they can typically

respect the boundaries of people, or at the very least they get it in a different type of capacity.

Bear is one hundred percent a dog guy and I am not somebody who believes that it's a cat versus dog world, okay, because I think as a cat person I find myself to be an animal person.

I like all animals, but dog people specifically resonate as dog people because they are looking to get something specific out of their relationship with their pet, and that is what Bear definitely is. he wants something that follows his every whim and loves him unconditionally and wags its little tail when he comes home, no matter what he does to earn it. He does not want to earn somebody's love or respect.

And I will say this as a raging cat lover, you need to earn the respect and love of your cat. You just do. So there's no convincing me that bear is a fucking cat guy. But anyway, on to the ending.

Let's talk about the final shot. It is Nikki alone crying, at first crying for Bear because she's still under the influence of the wish.

Then as Bear dies and she comes out of it and she realizes everything that she has just gone through and what has happened,

She is just sobbing and you are listening to her sobbing as the credits just roll and

Again, I was viscerally ill. I was nauseous to my core listening to her cry at the end of this movie. Sure, she makes it out alive, but she's the one left to carry the emotional and physical wreckage that did. Well, he gets to just leave via death. It is the most

Classic thing in the world. A woman left to pick up the pieces of a man's big ol' mess.

I also want to talk about Ian here, which is supposed to be Bear's best friend. This is the guy who eggs him on, who tries to sabotage Bear by having him call Nikki freaky Nikki as a joke. and then later wishes for a billion dollars in the middle of a crisis. This is your male loneliness epidemic subplot right here.

Had Ian just been honest with Bear that he was sleeping with Nikki from the jump instead of encouraging Bear to keep obsessing over her, Bear might have turned his sights onto literally anything else instead of building up this years-long fixation inside of his head. And so, like, the other men enable this. It's not just Bear. It is the fact that Ian is breadcrumbing his encouragement about

how Bear should respond to Nikki instead of just being honest and having a real conversation and then bringing his relationship with Nikki up at like the worst time. Like literally the worst time. Which brings me to the actual thesis of the movie, which is the man or the bear, right?

In case you're living under a rock and you need a little help remembering, the discourse is that many women were surveyed whether they would choose to run into a bear in the woods or whether they would choose to run into a strange man in the woods. And

Almost every woman, myself included, is like, I would choose the bear. Men absolutely fucking lost their minds about this over the internet. They simply could not process and digest what we were saying. And a lot of the clapback was like, how dare women choose a bear over them?

Men make this a physical argument that women could not physically fight a bear, which by the way, is if a man could physically fucking fight a bear, but okay.

And this is where you started to see women saying, Okay, well it's not every man, but it's certainly every woman, where every single woman that that you know, if you're listening to this podcast, if not yourself, it's someone that you know has been

Preyed upon in some way, that was unwanted and felt unsafe, no matter how quote unquote nice that guy may think that he is. And so naming the character Bear isn't a coincidence, right? That Bear is quote unquote the nice guy.

And that even a nice guy who maybe is well intending is still somebody who is dangerous to women, who rapes Nikki, who

forces her into a relationship who

Who then recognizes that this isn't all that he thought it would be chalked up to be, and still can't see himself out of it. So the name Bear, while I originally thought, like, was this a coincidence? The more I thought about it, the more I was like, hello, this is the point that even the bear, even the quote unquote nice guy, is dangerous. And I love that thesis for a movie. I think that's fucking brilliant. And this is why.

It stayed in the movies for six whole weeks. so it's streaming if you'd like to go see it. and I suggest that you do.

Okay, let us dive into the drama.

Okay, bestie, buckle up because at the core of this movie is about intrusive thoughts and how different people respond to their intrusive thoughts. Which is a fascinating concept if you really think about it.

So here's the setup. There are two main couples in this movie. There is Emma and Charlie, who is our main characters, and then there's Mike and Rachel. Emma and Mike are both people of color. Charlie and Rachel are not. So we have two interracial couples. And when these confessions come out, it is Emma and Mike whose past gets treated as unforgivable.

even though neither one of them have actually physically hurt someone. So Emma confesses to planning a school shooting as a teenager, but never went through with it.

She admits that when she was younger, she grew up in a military household. She liked the aesthetic of it because she was around it, obviously, and was seeing it, especially moving around, part of the military. but then ended up making friends with people in school

Who were anti-gun, and from that moment of joining that group of friends, she has spent her entire life, including a lot of her adult life, as an anti-gun activist. So she is actively doing the work to course correct harm that she did not actually commit, but that she intended to commit, right? So the difference between intention and impact, which you talk about on the show all the freaking time, because you know it's one of my favorite topics. Meanwhile, her fiance.

Charlie bullied somebody so badly that their entire family moved out of town.

Mike

And his ex girlfriend

were approached by a dog. It is then described that the ex-girlfriend was kicking the dog. So right away I was like, ugh, like couldn't be me. the dog then gets violent, from our understanding of the story, and Mike goes behind the ex-girlfriend who's kicking the dog. Now the dog's getting violent with her. and so they make it seem like it's this awful, horrible, bad thing

That he used his ex-girlfriend as a human shield. But that's not really the way that the story is getting told. And of course, in none of these scenarios do we really know the truth. We were not there. We were getting somebody's recollection of these stories. But Rachel tells a story where she leaves a special needs boy locked in a closet in an abandoned trailer, miles from home, and then actively lied to his parents and the police about it.

And the kid was missing for over 48 hours, from our understanding. even though they end up finding him, the real documented harm that Charlie and Rachel both do, but that somehow get to brush off, is not as bad as white characters, as their black partners.

And counterparts in these stories who did not actually commit harm at all. And yet somehow.

Charlie and Rachel both display zero empathy in this entire movie. And I do mean zero. Charlie loves to say that he loves Emma's empathy.

Right up until he doesn't need her to have any anymore. Funny how that works.

And like a great example of this is there is a whole moment with their DJ who they think they see smoking crack. And Emma's first instinct when we're watching the scene is empathy. she's not out here assuming that she knows this person's whole story.

Julia Rose Portela (: 32:57

Charlie is the one who insists that they confront the DJ, and then when Emma does actually confront her, Charlie flips it and says that Emma is acting crazy and overreacting, which cool, very cool. Thanks for making Emma look like the crazy angry black woman in a situation that you pushed her into, Charlie. Simply could not be me. could not be me.

This is not the first time that he does this, by the way. He does this also when they go for drinks at the wine tasting.

Charlie continues to fill Emma's drinks up and then when she is hungover and throwing up, he insists like, Why did you drink so much?

Gaslighter number one. Then there is Rachel and Emma.

Emma expresses genuine remorse for what she almost did in the school shooting. And then she takes real action and becomes an anti-gun activist and does the actual work. And this is not something that is just like she course corrects on her own. She joins groups, her dad brings it up.

Charlie mentions it earlier about her empathy, but

But Rachel gives her back nothing. Like zero nuance. and we know that her racial biases, despite being married to a black man, show through because she then later says to Mike, Well, you grew up around guns with no other preconceived notion about why that would be true other than the fact that he is black, and that is a stereotype that she is placing upon him. She is a mean girl.

About this entire situation from start to finish.

She is talking about Emma behind her back. She's straight up hostile to Emma. Not one ounce of curiosity in her little tiny brain about Emma's actual story. She just jumps to a conclusion, makes a judgment, and then sticks to it.

And then caps it off with an absolutely unhinged maid of honor speech at her wedding. Ma'am.

And then there is Misha.

Despite the fact that she is in a relationship and she knows that Charlie is getting married and she's clearly invited to the wedding, she is willing to sleep with Charlie. And Charlie has a moment when they are about to fuck, where he clocks in real time

That cheating on Emma and torching their wedding is now the worst thing that he's ever done.

Emma's entire arc is built on offering up the truth. Instead of lying in this moment where she is asked what is the worst thing that she's ever done, she offers up something real, even if it is hard to process and hard to digest. But instead of her friends taking her at face value and saying, that is something crazy that we are learning about you, considering who you are today. This picture that I have of you right now and who I know that you are, and this

person that I know that you have become

Whereas so much of Charlie's storyline and arc is built off of lies. And this moment with Misha is

No different. His instinct is to lie and to cover it up.

This is a man who harasses Rachel's cousin when he finds her in the street. someone who was actually personally impacted by gun violence

While cosplaying as this reasonable, empathetic person, he ruins his own wedding and he ruins Misha's relationship in the same breath. Charlie not only has caused harm in the past that has forced a kid and his family to move wherever they were living from, but actively causes harm throughout this movie, repeated harm for two hours straight.

Emma has one bad plan that she never actually carried out as a teenager and an entire adult lifetime atoning for it. And so the movie is asking us how we process

My favorite topic impact versus intention.

And the movie knows it, even if Charlie never figures it out.

Given how much of this movie is deliberately told out of order and how much the visual style is mimicking the intrusive thought patterns that the characters are experiencing, I don't actually think Charlie and Emma stay together at the end of this movie. And honestly, good. She should dump his ass.

If anything, I like imagining the true chronology is different.

than how it's technically shown to us on screen. I would say that they both leave their wedding, they meet at the diner first, and then it ends with them breaking up and Charlie goes home alone and he's dancing by himself in the apartment with no one to blame but himself for once.

That reading fits the whole thesis of my interpretation of the movie so much better than like a tidy reconciliation at the end of this movie ever could, but you could also lean into the fact that Emma is portrayed as an empathetic character and that she may be willing to forgive these transgressions now that Charlie understands

the depth of how these choices can truly impact our lives.

But I like my reading of it better. I like the idea that Charlie goes home alone, that they break up,

I thought the editing and the film work was really good. Borgli Lee was really out here making you feel unwell. You're watching this movie, you're just like, what is happening? And it is iconic, if not deeply unsettling, filmmaking. So you should watch the movie for that alone.

Alright, let us

move on to the Odyssey. And I cannot and will not talk about this movie without bringing up Emily Wilson,

The classicist whose twenty seventeen Odyssey translation, the only one done by a woman, by the way, is one that Nolan credited as a major influence on

Whose Tell Me About a Complicated Man opening line he literally used, going absolutely feral on this film in public. she called the script abysmal. She said she'd be ashamed to have written any part of it. She said it's emotionally empty and has nothing convincing to say,

And honestly, imagine if this was your life's work.

she has probably spent a good portion of her life translating the Odyssey.

So the audacity of having some man, no matter how talented he is as a filmmaker, cite your life's work as inspiration for this thing that they've done and then having them come for your neck in the Atlantic is

Really delicious. I hope someone makes a story about this one day.

Alright, so where do I personally land on this topic? Because I read Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey to prepare to watch this movie. I knew a fair amount. I would say mythology is something I'm interested in, and so I just like naturally gravitate towards stuff like that. but

Haven't read the Odyssey in a minute or two. So she's not wrong about everything. The women do feel a little bit flattened to me in.

in this story.

And while I think it's annoying that we're in twenty twenty six and we have this incredible cast of women that are a part of this movie,

For them to be almost diminished, with the exception of maybe Circe who I thought was phenomenal in this movie, I I do agree with Emily Wilson there. I also do think that it's weird that there's genuinely zero sex in this movie. Like not one single scene. which for a story that is steeped.

In seduction and desire is a choice, for sure. And not one that I fully understand. But is this movie a flop? Like, absolutely not. We keep reimagining and reinterpreting mythology precisely because there's not one settled version of these stories to begin with. That's the whole point, that art gets explored through these different lenses forever. And that that's the deal that we signed up for when we go to see a movie like The Odyssey.

I don't think the integrity of the story is completely gutted. I think that Nolan is specifically excavating it through the lens of guilt and grief and what those things do to a person over time. And that is a valid angle to take. That is just one small part of this story that he is telling, and that he is maximized into this incredible cinematic event. Do I think that his craft should be diminished because of Wilson's critique?

Absolutely not. There is so much visual splendor in this film. But here's what is genuinely bizarre to me. You cannot spend your entire press tour name-dropping a scholar's translation as your north star of this film,

And then just like not weight her actual take on these characters very heavily. Like a struggle, Chris. honestly, there's so much money for these movies to be budgeted. And I know that Christopher Nolan keeps his scripts locked up tight, but

If you're going to continue to cite somebody as the inspiration for the story, or their translation of this as inspiration for the story that you're telling, then with your very weighty budget, you should probably just fucking pay her to come on and weigh in in the writer's room. Like you could pay somebody to help you do this. They have enough money. Christopher Nolan and the budget that he would be approved for, I'm sure, for this movie.

could have fucking hired

Emily Wilson to be in the writer's room and to help craft a story that was true to the translation that he continued to cite. but make no mistake, this movie is a visual feat. It is genuinely a cultural phenomenon. And I think what Nolan's going for in this exploration of guilt and grief of a returning warrior

Is a thoughtful through line over the course of the movie. But some of the choices underneath that I have so many thoughts. first and foremost, Calypso, who Christopher Nolan single handedly turned into a manic pixie dream girl. And we need everyone to understand how unhinged that is. In the actual myth, this woman holds a god level amount of power over Odysseus because hello, she is a goddess.

She keeps him on her island for seven years. She offers literal immortality. She is actively seducing him. She is sleeping with him. She is holding him hostage.

Their sexual abuse was

The movie instead gives us an almost maternal goddess calypso, which, sir, that is not the assignment. That was not the assignment that you were handed. That is not the assignment that you were asked to write. There is a scene where she literally goes, Now you're ready to remember, as if this is not a woman who had been deliberately and intentionally keeping him from remembering this entire time by feeding him lotus flower.

That is the Manic Pixie Dream Girl playbook to a T. She wakes the man up instead of being the one who was keeping him asleep on purpose for her own reasons as an act of power. They have inverted her entire function inside of the mythology and expected no one to notice.

And I did. I did Christopher. I did know this. And I did not like this.

And I need to put Circe right next to Calypso because it makes the Calypso decision so much more annoying. Circe isn't just sympathetic here, her power is visceral. You watch her actually work her magic, and it is giving main character energy. I could have watched an entire movie about Circe when we had to leave that island with Odysseus and go back on his journey. I was slightly annoyed. I was like, just leave me on the island with Circe.

I wanna hang out with her for a little bit longer.

But this exploration that Christopher Nolan has done is also a deviation from the mythology, where she is usually written as a temptress. But here she is sort of rebranded as this like cottage core witch girly, which honestly I'm so down. She's independent, she's autonomous, she's sovereign, which are all things that are true in the mythology.

And her witchcraft is literally a shield and a form of protection from assault and rape and pillaging by men. And she uses that same magic to turn the men of Odysseus's crew into pigs, which is genuinely perfect and a tidy little way of exposing their arrogance, their greed, the overall pigishness of men.

Pun very much intended.

Circe and Calypso are structurally the same type of character in mythology, although they serve very different purposes and very different functions. But they both are typically like seductress, temptress. There is something sexy or sexually empowered about them. They are both powerful women that Odysseus runs into, both usually written like as these sexual beings,

And neither one of these women is written as sexual beings, though I will say that Circe is at least reimagined in a way that is interesting and engaging. So why couldn't they do that with Calypso?

I do want to bring up the Cyclops scene because there's not a lot of special effects or CGI in this movie. and that's why I think the movie has so much visual splendor to it. It makes it just feel very different. the Cyclop sequence was phenomenal. I have no notes, I have no complaints, it was just a pure spectacle done absolutely right, and I loved it. let's talk about Penelope, who refuses to take a suitor.

literally years after Odysseus is gone. He's been gone for the Trojan War for ten years. He's been gone ten years since. It's taken him ten years to get home.

On paper, so romantic. but also girly pop, you had every right to boot these icky little men out of your house years ago. I don't care about Zeus's law.

I realize that maybe waiting is the only romantic option that was on the table for Penelope. So I do want that on record. But I would have I would have been pulling my own Circe. I would have been looking into the dark magics to kick these men out of my house.

Anyway, we have to talk about Helen of Troy, who

I think this might be the single biggest diversion from the mythology in the entire film. I could be wrong about that, but in my opinion, this was like something that was very stark to me. In the actual myth, it's genuinely unclear whether Helen was abducted by Paris or left with him willingly, out of love. Like it's the ambiguity is kind of the point.

In most versions of the mythology the

Helen does agree to marry Menelaus.

But in almost all of the versions of the mythology, like we're not really sure what happens with Paris.

So it was jarring to me when we have this moment where Menelaus grabs Helen's face and turns her face and shows us that it's now scarred. And it read to me.

as a woman who is trapped either way. That this war was not fought over love. It is fought over pride. That Helen is the collateral damage of that pride twice over.

Helen, the face that launched a thousand ships, her actual beauty is now marred because of the scar that she dons. And she's clearly stuck in a loveless marriage. you could see on her face that there is disdain and contempt for Menelaus. and the way that it's shot, I'll be honest, this is my own read. I don't know if the movie specifically is trying to spell it out this way for us, but it feels to me like Menelaus is the one who scarred her.

specifically so that she could not be taken again.

And then there is Clytemnestra, who is married to Agamemnon and kills him immediately upon his arrival home after he sacrifices their own daughter just to get good sailing winds. Agamemnon is like an icky little man across the entire film. full stop, no notes. And I think that the story of these two sisters,

Helen and Clytemnestra is functioning as this bigger reflection of how women get treated as possessions for men to use and as the collateral damage of like the systemic injustice that these women had.

Even though the entire war was fought.

in Helen's name and honor. And then we have Athena who is played by Zendaya, who is perfect in every way. Zendaya getting three of the six credits that we have

in today's episode. my theory, she's not Athena at all. here's why I think.

As far as we know, Odysseus never sees Athena until after the fall of Troy. At Troy, he watches his own men behead a priestess of Athena's temple. And that image directly echoes a later moment where a statue of Athena is also shown decapitated.

Athena is the goddess of wisdom, but she is also the goddess of strategic warfare. So decapitating her, literally or metaphorically, is basically the movie screaming that wisdom and strategy have been completely severed. That's exactly the moment that we watch of brutality, this like lack of propriety by killing a priestess. Like there's something sacrilege about this, right? something so visceral in its brutality.

So my read is that Athena is a manifestation of Odysseus's conscious. maybe this felt obvious to people, but there are certain things that imply that maybe it is a real person, or a real goddess that he is confronting, and we know through stories of mythology that characters can meet different gods and goddesses.

But I think it's him confronting in real time the young woman that was killed in war as a direct result of what he has done.

either way, whether she's real or not real, chef's kiss. Loved Zendaya in this role. my verdict is that it's worth it. It's visually stunning, it's genuinely a good time at the movies. Go see it big. Go see it with your eyes open about where it stumbles, particularly with some of its feminist theming. And then

Come and argue with me about Calypso because I will not be moved.

Alright, let us move on to Spider Man, brand new day. The reason that Spider Man is such a lovable hero to begin with is because he is the guy

Who has been through the absolute fucking ringer and still commits to his integrity every single time. And this movie gets that on a level that the others haven't. Because we've actually been on this whole journey with Peter, if you've been following his story through the MCU, which I'm assuming if you're listening to this, you have.

So let's tally up the receipts, okay? Somewhere off screen before we ever meet Peter, he's lost his parents.

He was then blipped for five years, and

When he comes back from that blip, he loses his mentor, Tony Stark. He then, subsequently, loses Happy Hogan, loses his Aunt May, loses Ned and MJ, and then his entire identity all at once, through magic, so that nobody ever remembers him enough to grieve with him over all of these things that he's lost. We've watched every single one of those losses happen.

In real time across

Many movies at this point. So landing here at the beginning of this movie in this familiar, stripped down

solo hero place, it hits so much harder than if we'd just been told like yeah he's been through a lot.

I kept thinking about the Crucible a lot in this movie. Crucible, one of my favorite plays ever. one of my favorite stories, perhaps. And I kept thinking about John Proctor's line where he's like, Because it is my name, because I cannot have another. He says it exactly like that, by the way. that's the whole movie. That's what this Spider-Man movie is about.

Who is Spider-Man if he's not Peter Parker? And who is Peter Parker if literally no one is around to remember or love him? Watching Tom Holland play grief and self-isolation and loneliness in this specific way was genuinely heartbreaking. And it gets reinforced in this movie over and over again.

He's straight up insta-stalking Ned and MJ's lives from the outside. Frank straight up clocks that it's weird that he won't take his mask off, even when it's just the two of them alone.

He leaves a note for like his Uber Eats driver to leave his food outside instead of interacting with a single human being.

I mean, I just think a lot of these men that we talk about in these movies would benefit from therapy, but you know, who am I? As a sidebar, real quick, and as somebody who lives twenty minutes from Queens,

Thirty five minutes from Manhattan.

This movie, acting like a kid from Queens, is ordering a Little Caesars pizza, is the most unrealistic fucking thing that I've ever seen in my entire life. It was a major fumble. Peter Parker actually deserves a New York slice of pizza. And I will not be taking any follow-up questions on this. I do not know a single New Yorker who has had little Caesars. Maybe upstate New York, but not somebody who lives anywhere on.

Long Island or in Queens or in Manhattan or any of the boroughs. I have not met a single person that has had little Caesars. Even when I lived in Florida and I worked at Disney, did I not have Little Caesars Pizza? And my friends would be like, if you miss pizza so much, just go to Little Caesars. I will not. Because when you live in New York, you have pizza integrity and you have bagel integrity. And these are things that just follow you throughout your life.

And you are an expert at those things and you are not wrong. There is no way that you can convince me that Peter Parker, a kid from Queens, ordered a fucking little Caesar's pizza.

I'm dropping it, but I was really annoyed about it. I do love that Peter immediately takes accountability for kissing MJ while she was taken over by Jean Gray. There's no hemming, no hawing, no like, well, technically, he just owns it. He apologizes for it.

I mean in that moment with Jean Gray was fucking cruel and sick. it was twisted.

I mean I knew it was her in the way that MJ was being so cheesy and like so direct about certain things.

And yet I was choked up when

Peter is like, this is really hurtful what you've just done. and

how long he's been harboring these feelings of isolation to think that MJ is maybe going to remember him or remember something about him, only to have it ripped away by knowing that it is Jean overtaking MJ in that moment was like so harrowing to watch. But I love that we meet Jean as a somewhat villain in this movie, but not a real villain, which would have been easy and a lazy choice perhaps.

But as a genuinely complicated young woman who ends up benefiting from Peter as this mentor figure, and that Peter gets to step into this role as a mentor and apologizes to her. Like sincerely apologizes to her for getting this entire situation wrong. It's such a small thing that a lot of these movies end up skipping entirely, but that actually really matters when it comes down to it.

And while we're at it, let's talk about the fact that Department of Damage Control is now officially fully in its villain era.

Tremel Tillman, aka My Daddy, was in this movie. Did not think that this was the best use of him. and I'm hoping that they do some depth and and fleshing out that character. Because if you're gonna have my daddy Tremel in this role in the MCU, you better give me devious. You better give me real villain. You better give me complicated.

And we know that he can do it because we're watching it in Severance and he's fucking amazing at it. I'm here for that pivot. I'm here for the pivot that the that the DODC is now

moving into this place where there is like an abuse of its power.

I think that that's a strong commentary about how these government agencies can end up wielding too much power. And I think that that's poignant and pertinent in this moment in time. one of my favorite parts of the whole movie is the Frank and Peter relationship. Peter Parker is somebody who benefits from a mentor, and I would say that Bruce Banner sort of is a little bit of a mentor to him.

In this movie, but Frank comes in genuinely much more as a friend. and Peter needs friends who understand things about him and his powers and being a superhero in a way that Ned and MJ never could,

Even when they did remember him.

The Staten Island bit was immaculate. I thought it was so funny. By the time we get to like the third or fourth bit of that, it's funny. We don't even need to know what it was. Like there is something that the MCU used to do really well, and it's this. It was making us aware of the intimacy and the connection of these characters that existed off screen that we didn't necessarily need to see in order to understand the depth of their relationship and connection to each other. So we don't know what happened on Staten Island.

We sort of hear like little bits and pieces of it, but it's the point of the bit is to let us know that these two characters are connected even when we're not watching it, even when we don't see it on screen.

And when the MCU does that and it does it well, I think that we are in like the golden era of that MCU feeling that those of us who are fans of these shows and movies are super nostalgic for from that Infinity saga. Peter needed new friends. He's gone four long years.

Without any true companionship. And so I love that he has Frank now. And I love that Peter genuinely brings out the best in Frank. It's a two-way street, not a rescue mission. And I think that that's wonderful here as far as their developing relationship goes. and a great use of Frank, by the way, a great use of the Punisher,

The ending with Ned, Jeff's kiss, true love's handshake.

And he actually seems to remember Peter. I was so emotional. I like genuinely can't wait to go watch this movie later. It's a rainy Monday where I live. I have nothing else on my docket or my schedule today. I I cannot wait to go and actually watch this movie again. I'm like salivating to go and see it. It was just that good. I I really can't wait to watch this moment again, to see some of these beats again.

I think that there's a real potential for MJ to get there too via like a true love's kiss. but it has to be earned, you know? The idea that that Jean Gray throws it back into Peter's face where she's like, What did you think? It was just gonna be like true love's kiss and everything would magically work out fine for you. But we see that there's something about this physical connection that Ned and Peter have together that awakens Ned up to their relationship that

I think could also be true for MJ, and yet we see her at the end of this movie reflecting on Peter and what she's learned and all of this stuff. And there's a path forward for them, but it's gotta be rebuilt from this place of the people that they are today, the things that they've learned in the years that they have not spent together, and allow their reconciliation to be the thing that fuels.

a a redeveloped spark between them as the people that they are now. and that that could potentially bring back everything that,

she's lost. So I do think that this idea of like true love's kiss is not lost. but man, can these three actors together just really tug at your fucking heartstrings.

And Peter's patience with where these people are, honestly tracks. It's who he is throughout this whole movie. even after she breaks his heart, he still brings her home. and I've seen some people backlashing this on the internet. but Peter is always so loving and so respectful, even in his own devastation, he is willing to put MJ

And her needs, and what is right above what he's feeling. he doesn't act out or lash out because she didn't give him the answer that he's looking for. Unlike Bear, by the way. Unlike Bear. this is actually Peter Parker, a real nice guy, not the archetype of a nice guy. And that's the character, and that's always been the character.

And that's why Tom Holland, who is so connected to this character, is fucking amazing at it because I don't think anyone's ever seen an interview or interacted with anything that Tom Holland has created and been like, that's not a nice guy. You could just tell he's got a vibe about him. I would be despondent if I was wrong about this, by the way. so let's talk about the physical changes that Peter goes through because I need to talk about them. There is like this genuinely hilarious bit where Peter is watching

spider evolution happened in real time like maturing into adulthood and he asks his AI who is named E.V to turn it off because he just simply cannot with what he is seeing. He's like, I can't deal. as a sidebar, I genuinely hate that the AI that he creates is a fucking woman. Free women, aka Alexa and Siri and now e.v

From the burden of being AI slaves.

I think that there is something incredibly interesting about the fact that all of these AI technologies who are made to serve us and manage our schedules and write down your shopping list and whatever else they're meant to do are women. Is that going to be a femme frame in the future? Probably. But please, like free women from the burden of being AI slaves. Truly, I am begging you, Marvel. Please, please.

Also, notice how the only male AI that we've had is Jarvis, and that becomes a full fledged character who is now about to have

his own T V series called Vision Quest. anyway.

Peter then develops his own organic web, so no more web shooters. They in fact do not work when he is in this specific mode because he's got the organic webs now. I love the little gag that he does when it comes out. It is so funny. the way that he references Toby Maguire as like Spider-Man 2. He's like, Spidey 2 had this and it was totally fine.

This like insinuation of being grossed out, by the way, by like ejaculation, which is very much what it's doing and very much what it's intending to do. I laughed out loud in the theater. This got a good chuckle out of like the pack theater that I was in. The verdict is I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to someone who hasn't seen any of the other MCU Spider-Man movies. I would not recommend you going in cold.

But it's at least easy enough to catch up on the isolated trilogy beforehand, even if you have zero other MCU history. you'll enjoy this one just fine, and then you will come to love it even more if you go back and watch other MCU properties and deepen your lore and n understanding.

So if you've not seen this, I would say there's a little bit of homework first, but but yeah, I love this movie and I really can't wait to go see it again today. like genuinely cannot wait.

Alright, let us move on to Sterling Point.

So the premise is that Annie, a teenager who grew up in New York, uncovers a genuinely staggering amount of family drama, including casually inheriting an entire freaking island. aka Sterling Point, as one does in your teenage years, because who among us has not experienced that? The show is filled to the brim with unique characters from the working class brooding boy that she is inevitably going to have a crush on.

To the old family friends who have vacation there for forever a

a genuinely vibrant queer community that is woven into the fabric of the island, and a brand new connection with a girl named Ramona. And I do mean brand new in the most tangled way possible because Ramona initially seems to be Annie's sister through some complicated adoption stuff. Meaning, Annie was adopted with her twin brother Connor when they were babies

By her mother, Goldie, and her father.

Goldie dies. Annie and Connor live with their father in New York

And Goldie's father, Gordon, owns this entire island, Sterling Point. He is the one who gets into contact and he tells Annie to find her. We discover that her is Ramona, who is Goldie's biological daughter that

is a few years younger than Annie.

By the end of the series, we find out that she is actually the biological daughter of both of Annie's adoptive parents. so it's a lot. The season ends with Ramona going home to spend time with their dad, while Annie stays behind in Sterling Point, which

brings both an air of optimism that both of these girls will get what they need, but also, you know, devastating that these two sisters who have just found each other, whose relationship is the heartbeat of the entire show, are off in separate directions.

Ella Rubin, who plays Annie, has real star quality to her and she's gonna go places. she is delightful, she is carrying the whole show and she makes it look easy.

Now let's talk about the love triangle because I have thoughts. The show spends a lot of time building this intimacy and relationship between Rory and Annie. there's more emotional depth, I think, and more vulnerability between these two characters. and then the show has Annie end up with Ellis. And honestly, there's never really like a conversation between Annie and Ellis.

Rory about why it's not working for her. she sort of just has a moment with Ellis and then Rory is nowhere to be seen ever again. I don't think the writing fully earns the pivot that we get. I think that the intention was Rory is familiar, and familiar isn't what she needs. but the execution of the way that the story unfolds doesn't quite get there.

what I do think is happening symbolically though is that Rory and Ellis represent two different facets of Annie, where Ellis

Is different enough from her

That choosing to be with him romantically is Annie choosing to explore something unfamiliar and choosing herself, so to speak.

Ellis just has ties to the island in a way that Rory doesn't. and so choosing Ellis isn't just like picking a boy, so to speak. It's Annie choosing Starling Point itself, choosing this whole new version of her life, over the New York City version of the life that she's been living.

And that's why the no bad option structure works really well here because both Rory and Ellis are respectful. They are both very adoring. There's no secret awful guy waiting to be unmasked. it reframes the whole love triangle as like who is the right choice and subverts it into who Annie is becoming.

which again, writing execution aside, is a genuinely smart structural idea for a coming-of-age show to be built around.

I also want to talk about the queer representation for a minute because this is where this show is doing something that I think a lot of TV shows struggle with, and that is showing range within the queer community. I would say that Ramona falls more under like a masc lesbian. oona is like femme lesbian.

Sully is giving like queer and campy or like almost like high femme energy. And then Annie, who is explicitly described as one of the episode titles,

As giving single and bi. we don't necessarily see her act on that. But she does talk about feeling like she was asexual. it's joked about that she was dating a gay guy for a majority of her life. we see her ex-boyfriend like in Thailand.

Having his queer awakening

And literally

Every ostensibly straight character in the cast is written as an ally. there is no tokenism, in my opinion. there is an actual ecosystem of queerness and of support around the queer identities, and it is rare to see a show bother with that much specificity.

There's a lot of really rich feminist themes in this show, but my favorite is when the girls throw Maple, who is oona's younger sister, a celebration for getting her period. They make her like a little period crown. They howl at the moon. they all tell their period stories. They're talking about

How their ancestors used to dump their blood into the earth and then plant a tree on top of it. Like they're going through all of these different components about like different feminine mythologies. Like, I don't know, I just thought it was really beautiful, joyful moment. this idea that periods are something to be celebrated, not a moment in your life that is traumatic or something to be embarrassed about or hidden. and I think that we should have more of this in TV shows, like always more of this.

I do think that the show loses the plot a little bit. all of the parental lineage drama, Connor ends up finding their birth mother at the end. a whole wait, Joe is the father. No wait, Annie's dad is actually the father spiral. None of that needed to be here. the show already had its beating heart, and that is Annie and Ramona discovering that they are related through this incredibly complicated adoption story and building a real relationship.

Out of that discovery. That was the show. That is the the heartbeat of the show. So piling on all of this paternal drama on top of it just diluted what was already working perfectly, in my opinion. my other big note is that the show wrapped up way too fast. I thought the first half of the season was really good, the second half of the season lost me a little bit.

all of it needed a little bit more room, but especially for the Ellis romance, because Annie so visibly had more emotional depth and intimacy built with Rory that Ellis never really gets the chance to catch up. And the show doesn't really ever give him time. their relationship doesn't make sense to me. And I watched this with my teenage sister, at least watched the last couple of episodes of it with her. And when I asked her if it made sense to her, she also said no. So I think that there was something.

missing there to bridge the gap. if they're gonna commit into that pairing then I think that they need to give us a little bit of runway. A little bit more. Overall, messy if not a little overstuffed. But the best meals are usually that way. genuinely a little rushed at the end,

But a very vibey coming of age story underneath all of that, with characters that I am fully attached to and desperately want to spend more time.

And last but not least, my smuggle. Girls Girl by Sonia Feldman. This book is such a poignant reflection

Of what it actually feels like to come of age. the relationship between the mothers and daughters that are running underneath the story, the messiness and the confusion of coming out, and exploring your sexual identity, the social navigation of the digital world, and just like the sheer heightened intensity of being fifteen and everything feeling more amplified when you are that age.

At 15, everything feels urgent. Everything feels imposing. There is no small stakes at that age. There is only the entire world ending or the entire world being perfect. There is no in between. And I think that Sonia Feldman gets that exactly right. So let's talk about the kiss because that's what this whole book hinges on. Mina and Eleanor share a kiss. and they eventually, at the end of the book, start dating.

But the immediate fallout isn't the kiss itself. It's that Mina tells her mom, and ends up getting punished, not for kissing Eleanor, but for having slept at the school instead of sleeping at Margaret's like she was supposed to.

So she gets punished that paired with the fact that Margaret and Eleanor's parents are like generally just less attentive or less strict, is what pushes Margaret and Eleanor to be closer in their trio in the absence of Mina until they end up kissing during a game of truth or dare.

Which drives a wedge between Margaret and Eleanor and ends up pushing Eleanor and Mina closer together at that moment in time. So you've got this genuinely messy, like overlapping, not not a love triangle. because for Margaret it was something that she

was doing to look cool, even though she knew that Eleanor

It is queer.

And in the midst of all of that, you have Mina and Margaret, who have been best friends for their entire lives, having to figure out, you know, how to navigate their friendship through all of these changes that are happening.

There is not a single like clean betrayal or like a clean exploration of jealousy. It is just the specific chaos of three girls figuring out desire and loyalty and doing that at the time where there is not a lot of tools emotionally or mentally to do so gracefully. I also want to talk about the mothers in this book because Feldman uses them, I think, very precisely.

Margaret has a relationship with her mother that I would say is the most tumultuous. They argue openly. Her mom is considered the least quote unquote involved. She's mid-divorced. She's dating again. by the end of this book, we find out that she's also slept with her ex-husband again. She's actively trying to build her own separate life. Eleanor's mom, meanwhile, is a working girl.

she seems to have been queer herself

But she is the warmest presence of the three mothers and also completely hands-off. She does not interfere with Eleanor or the girls at all. and then there is Mina's mom, who is a stay-at-home mom, who is fully, painfully aware that her daughter is in the middle of her teenage years, and who talks about that with real nuance. You get a strong sense that Mina both loves her mom and desperately wants the space to grow into her own person.

and yet is also terrified of disappointing her.

Mina's mom is also very hyper-aware of her role within the household and even goes so far as to say that she is the one that is carrying the mental, emotional, and physical load of everyone that lives in the house. So you have three completely different mother-daughter dynamics, and every single one of them is doing some like quiet work underneath the friendship plot, and and how it is influencing the the depth of their friendship, which I really love.

This like exploration of the digital age is the thing that got me the most, genuinely. it is the way that tech operates as like a fourth character in this book. It's almost like a separate entity. It's got its own language between the three of them. the way that they can interact in group chats,

the visual exploration of what it looks like when you text somebody over and over again and they don't answer, at one point mean is like this unbalanced slate of blue, you know, you know, or like a sea of blue

And when she doesn't get a response there, she takes the conversation to Instagram so that she can see when Eleanor has read her DMs, and knows whether she's deliberately intentionally not in you know answering her, how long you have to wait before you respond to somebody's message, what it means if someone likes your post, what it is to post a picture for another person, like

All of these different things that get explored throughout the course of this book. And then we have like the Sims, like Mina is somebody who plays the Sims completely by the rules. She does not use cheat codes, she follows the rules, she's trying to keep her Sims alive. Eleanor does use cheat codes and she lets chaos roam free until she has to step in. and then Margaret barely plays at all. And these are not like throwaway details.

It's each of their personal philosophies laid out in miniature.

The way that we use phones and photos and technology as like a whole secondary silent language and how that gets played out in a group is not only so true to life, but something that almost nothing else I've read this year has come even close to capturing with this much precision. Plus, you have Mina exploring her own queer identity.

Partly through fanfiction, which like if you know, you know,

And the thing that elevates this whole book for me above anything else that I have read this year is the retrospective narration. This book is adult Mina looking back on that summer, and Feldman does something that is genuinely skillful with the past tense itself, because she lets you feel that this is a woman who is looking back without ever letting that framing drain the emotional beats of the summer as she is reflecting on them.

You still sympathize with fifteen-year-old Mina completely in the moment as she is fumbling through all of these changes, even though you know the whole time that an older, wiser version of Mina is the one that is telling you the story. That gap between how it felt and how she understands it now is exactly what makes the ending of this book land the way that it does, which is older Mina reflecting back on her friendship with Margaret.

Which is still giving besties for days. It's still intact. It's still very real. But Eleanor, she says, calls less. is a little bit more distant. and when she does call, it's nostalgic and it's reminiscent of something.

It's clear to the reader, even if it's never spelled out directly, that whatever that they had in their teenage years didn't survive into adulthood. that the romance doesn't necessarily make it, and that some people are just looking for a summer. And this book somehow makes that both completely heartbreaking and completely okay and normal. so you should go read it and then come cry to me.

about your own 15-year-old self and tell me your stories because this just made me so nostalgic and so happy to see the politics of girlhood displayed so clearly. and I I loved every bit of this book. I thought it was well worth the read. So that is our fast five, aka fast six for today. Thank you so much for listening to this episode.

I love you all so much.

I will be back, but until then, do not make any wishes on one wish willows. Do not divulge any drama on

Over drink.

Don't delay getting home from a ten year war by hanging out with the Manic Pixie Dream Goddess.

Don't take over someone's mind and make them kiss their long forgotten ex.

Don't accidentally inherit an island. Or maybe maybe you do do that one. and last but not least,

Don't kiss your best friend and have a drama fueled queer awakening over summer break. I will see you next time.

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