Sex Education s2, The Witcher, and Killing Eve

[impala_chick]

I probably shouldn't sign up for another fic exchange, but the ships and tags at idproquo look like so much fun!

I was disappointed by Sex Education season 2. I loved season one for its unashamed exploration of teenagers navigating sex/relationships together; and I really thought they were going to give us a wonderful male & female friendship. They shot both of those things to hell in S2. Miscommunication is probably one of my least favorite tropes (unless there is a really good reason to hide the ball), so I'm just annoyed by Maeve and Otis at this point.

I really love Adam's character, and I really liked how they seemed serious about NOT making it easy for him and Eric. But then they basically dropped the slow progression for a cliched public declaration! That said, I'd be lying if I said my heart didn't melt a lot. I'll still be watching next season and hoping my OTP gets to grow more, both together and apart.

I really liked Aimee's journey. The show did a great job of highlighting her struggle as she first tried to downplay it, and why even "little" assaults are really damaging. This is something that is so hard to explain to people involved in my field, and another reason why I appreciate the power of television.

I did appreciate the Jackson story line, and his relationship with his moms. He seemed to grow a ton this season. And that interpretation of Romeo and Juliet was stunning and hilarious. I'd pay money to see that play!

We finished The Witcher! It was fun to watch, although the timeline was all over the place. I know nothing about the game, which might have aided my understanding. I wanted more Geralt action scenes! The fight scenes really blew me away, especially the one with Renfri. I was so disappointed when her character was killed off. I was just starting to get to know her! I didn't really understand why they had to fight to the death, either. :/

Yennefer was not my favorite. Her transformation made me super uncomfortable. So she can only be a powerful witch if she's super hot? There is power in choosing what you look like, but the whole ritual nature of the transformation made it clear that she had to give up her ability to bear children (which seemed like a metaphor for - if you want to be powerful and beautiful, give up your womanhood). And then almost immediately after she made that choice, she was angry and wanted to have a child? She also seemed completely focused on herself and her own desires, until the last battle when her character seemingly did a 180 to try and protect all of the people she didn't give a shit about earlier in the show.

Jaskier was precious and hilarious, that's for sure. I'm not sure if I should be mad about the queer-baiting or just enjoy the excellent puns and songs.

And we just started Killing Eve. It's witty and weird, but it still seems to treat death seriously (which I like). I'm impressed with how they are portraying the serial killer as an actual psychopath. I'm immediately seeing the contrast with Lucifer, because Lucifer (the character and the show) treats death/mortality as a big joke in a lot of respects (and that makes the whole show feel silly sometimes).

Comments

[impala_chick]

Thanks for your thoughts, I appreciate the insight. Decades later??? Oh man, I wish Netflix would have used date-stamps or been a tiny bit more obvious about the flashbacks. The aesthetics were really pretty, so maybe it's worth a re-watch to become more in-tune with the timeline. I did feel like her relationship with Tissaia was important and certainly charged, but I was left with the feeling that I wasn't sure how often they had interacted (if at all) after Yennefer left the school.

[sylvanwitch]

The only reason I had a clue the first time I watched it (and on a second watch it was a lot clearer because I knew what to look for) is because I saw a comment on Twitter about there being three parallel timelines in each episode. So the stuff happening to Geralt is at a different time than that happening to Yenn and again to Ciri, although the parts eventually coalesce in the last two eps. (I mean, obviously, Yenn and Geralt's timelines intersect sooner than that, but there is still this long passage of time later on.). It's not at all your fault you didn't catch the little time references; they were very subtle, and as I said, if I hadn't been alerted, I'd have been really confused a lot of the time.

[impala_chick]

I could tell that Ciri was in a different timeline, and Mousesack and the Queen were very identifiable characters so I could kind of tell when the show was jumping to different points with them. But Yennefer and Geralt meeting up was confusing to me - after her transformation, I could not tell when time had passed. This means that Geralt and Jaskier have been travel buddies for decades? Precious.