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eumeliaHoly shit that was so fucking good!
I feel like this episode was written especially for me.
Except for the racist, sizeist and product placement comic relief scenarios with Sang Min and Kamekona (who fucking owned the scenes in that warehouse) there was nothing about this episode I didn't love.
The flashback to 16-year-old Steve was brilliantly filmed, the way everything was much brighter and whiter than the "present" and it wasn't a brightness of light, but of sharp pain which was portrayed beautifully by bb!Steve and Jack - who is the worst father on earth, Jesus.
Fatherhood and masculinity were the narrative threads of this episode and I was seriously overcome by how every single story line touched on that in some way, without being utterly sexist and misogynistic at the same time.
Hello show! Where have you been?!?
The whole episode revolved around fatherhood, from beginning to end, mostly about fathers fail their sons - their daughters though, that's another story, I'll touch on that in a mo'.
"Uncle Joe" huh? Well, both Joe and Jack are terrible, horrible fathers, just not good, because they are emotional cripples and manipulators and they've chucked all their baggage onto Steve who does his very best to be "the kind of man" his father would be proud of.
Did his father ever tell him he was proud of him? No.
Did Joe do anything throughout the season other than burden Steve time and again with guilt, all but blame him for his own torture at the hands of Wo Fat? No.
Does Hiro Noshimuri consider his son man enough to make his own decisions? No.
Adam, Adam, who tries so hard to be the man he thinks his father wants him to be, it's pretty stunning to see the parallels between him and Steve.
Add to that that they are practically doppelgangers and the their story is eerily similar.
It's no secret that my favourite is Danny. Danny is a good father in that typical "quality time" kind of way. He does his best to spend as much time as possible with Grace and praises her and bestows his love upon her in a way the other fathers on this show seem incapable of.
Could it be because his child is a girl? Maybe, but Danny was there for the mother of his child because Rachel and he are, in Rachel's words, friends.
Bittersweet resolution and in no way complete, but Danny does something else that made me *wibble*. He stood there as a witness for Stan in the name of fatherhood. In spite of his own issues with the man and the fact that he is married to his ex-wife and all the drama around the pregnancy; Danny felt a solidarity with Stan due to the fact that they are both fathers.
That's amazing, because it is so rare, in fact I can't recall I've ever seen something similar occur on screen. A man, a man of Danny's personality and presence, stand in for another man because he was absent and throughout the ep there was confusion as to what exactly Danny was doing there - Joe's sexist remark about alimony and going above and beyond struck me as a misunderstanding of Danny's motivations.
Danny has trouble letting go. But he wasn't there to win Rachel over again, he was there to support Grace and make sure Rachel wasn't alone during this ordeal. That's being a decent human being, imo and if there's something about Danny, it's that he's decent.
Let me just say, the fact that Danny said "vagina" and "cervix" without cracking up and was opposed to New Age crap he was reading made me all tingly inside - "mainlining drugs" thank you Danny, your scepticism makes me want to give you a wet one on the tip of your adorable nose (which Rachel's baby boy did not inherit).
When you think about it, who is the better man? The father who will give up his so-called territory for another man? Or the father who will do everything to keep his territory and send all and any risk factors out of his sight so that he can hunt in peace?
I'm know what I think, but it's worth dwelling on.
As for other things that went on - I love Chin and Kono being partners and double teaming perps - Chin is intimidating and underestimating Kono is a mistake and it is glorious to watch.
Sang Min's hair is amazing, I dunno what Lori was on about. Kamekona as an ambivalent character was something I've been waiting to see, it's a good look on him and a reminder to us that for all his loveable attitude, he's not a good character.
Using both Sang Min and Kamekona as product placement comic relief shticks was racist, sizeist and over all skeevy. Show, this is my middle finger to your capitalist agenda and white supremacist attitude, kindly keep it down in there.
Though I did giggle-snort at Steve's remark that Sang Min could keep the wire once they were done, due to its *ahem* placement.
And of course, Steve's loving gaze at Danny at the end of the ep and the intertwining of the two fatherhood narratives in this actually made me cry. There is so much love between them, bursting at the seams, I can't wait for the next episode!
That's all folks!
I feel like this episode was written especially for me.
Except for the racist, sizeist and product placement comic relief scenarios with Sang Min and Kamekona (who fucking owned the scenes in that warehouse) there was nothing about this episode I didn't love.
The flashback to 16-year-old Steve was brilliantly filmed, the way everything was much brighter and whiter than the "present" and it wasn't a brightness of light, but of sharp pain which was portrayed beautifully by bb!Steve and Jack - who is the worst father on earth, Jesus.
Fatherhood and masculinity were the narrative threads of this episode and I was seriously overcome by how every single story line touched on that in some way, without being utterly sexist and misogynistic at the same time.
Hello show! Where have you been?!?
The whole episode revolved around fatherhood, from beginning to end, mostly about fathers fail their sons - their daughters though, that's another story, I'll touch on that in a mo'.
"Uncle Joe" huh? Well, both Joe and Jack are terrible, horrible fathers, just not good, because they are emotional cripples and manipulators and they've chucked all their baggage onto Steve who does his very best to be "the kind of man" his father would be proud of.
Did his father ever tell him he was proud of him? No.
Did Joe do anything throughout the season other than burden Steve time and again with guilt, all but blame him for his own torture at the hands of Wo Fat? No.
Does Hiro Noshimuri consider his son man enough to make his own decisions? No.
Adam, Adam, who tries so hard to be the man he thinks his father wants him to be, it's pretty stunning to see the parallels between him and Steve.
Add to that that they are practically doppelgangers and the their story is eerily similar.
It's no secret that my favourite is Danny. Danny is a good father in that typical "quality time" kind of way. He does his best to spend as much time as possible with Grace and praises her and bestows his love upon her in a way the other fathers on this show seem incapable of.
Could it be because his child is a girl? Maybe, but Danny was there for the mother of his child because Rachel and he are, in Rachel's words, friends.
Bittersweet resolution and in no way complete, but Danny does something else that made me *wibble*. He stood there as a witness for Stan in the name of fatherhood. In spite of his own issues with the man and the fact that he is married to his ex-wife and all the drama around the pregnancy; Danny felt a solidarity with Stan due to the fact that they are both fathers.
That's amazing, because it is so rare, in fact I can't recall I've ever seen something similar occur on screen. A man, a man of Danny's personality and presence, stand in for another man because he was absent and throughout the ep there was confusion as to what exactly Danny was doing there - Joe's sexist remark about alimony and going above and beyond struck me as a misunderstanding of Danny's motivations.
Danny has trouble letting go. But he wasn't there to win Rachel over again, he was there to support Grace and make sure Rachel wasn't alone during this ordeal. That's being a decent human being, imo and if there's something about Danny, it's that he's decent.
Let me just say, the fact that Danny said "vagina" and "cervix" without cracking up and was opposed to New Age crap he was reading made me all tingly inside - "mainlining drugs" thank you Danny, your scepticism makes me want to give you a wet one on the tip of your adorable nose (which Rachel's baby boy did not inherit).
When you think about it, who is the better man? The father who will give up his so-called territory for another man? Or the father who will do everything to keep his territory and send all and any risk factors out of his sight so that he can hunt in peace?
I'm know what I think, but it's worth dwelling on.
As for other things that went on - I love Chin and Kono being partners and double teaming perps - Chin is intimidating and underestimating Kono is a mistake and it is glorious to watch.
Sang Min's hair is amazing, I dunno what Lori was on about. Kamekona as an ambivalent character was something I've been waiting to see, it's a good look on him and a reminder to us that for all his loveable attitude, he's not a good character.
Using both Sang Min and Kamekona as product placement comic relief shticks was racist, sizeist and over all skeevy. Show, this is my middle finger to your capitalist agenda and white supremacist attitude, kindly keep it down in there.
Though I did giggle-snort at Steve's remark that Sang Min could keep the wire once they were done, due to its *ahem* placement.
And of course, Steve's loving gaze at Danny at the end of the ep and the intertwining of the two fatherhood narratives in this actually made me cry. There is so much love between them, bursting at the seams, I can't wait for the next episode!
That's all folks!
