Hi everybody, it’s Wednesday! So when I was in London, I started watching this show called Love. It’s a Netflix original, and it’s produced by Judd Apatow. Now, I’ve seen a few things that Judd Apatow has touched, and he and his crews have this…kind of mixed bag of both progressive and retroactive productions. On the one hand, you’ve got Freaks and Geeks, which is honestly one of the most underrated shows I think I’ve ever seen.
It only has one season because it was canceled at the end of the first season, but it’s on Netflix, and I really loved it. The main character, Lindsay Weir (who’ splayed by Linda Cardellini, who plays Velma in the live-action Scooby-Doo movies)… She’s just trying to figure herself out like is she a freak or is she a geek? Because apparently there was a dichotomy in the 80s, and you could only be one or the other with nothing in between! The cast is not so perfect by today’s standards because of James Franco and his little… rat pack makes up most of the main cast. This character names are just like game of thrones bastard names.
Apatow also produced Bridesmaids, which, in my opinion, is one of the funniest female-led films of all time. Sure, there are some weird misogynistic things going on in it, but like that apparently has to happen in every female-led movie ever. [Snide] Even though it really doesn’t. The cast is spectacular, and while not perfect, it’s a really feel-good movie. But then there’s stuff like Girls, which is pseudo-progressive and has a lot of problems on its own, but I think that has more to do with Lena Dunham than Judd Apatow. And now there’s “Love.”
When I started watching the show, it was really promising. And then I read some pretty detailed reviews that were on Netflix. The two biggest ones that I read talked about how the show started out super progressive and really interesting and about half-way through the series, just becomes really cliche and problematic. I wasn’t optimistic about the show anymore, but I kinda wanted to see what they were talking about for myself. At first, the main character, Mickey, really reminded me of Lindsay from Freaks and Geeks, which I loved because I liked Lindsay.
She was weird and not put together very well. She’s trying to figure out life, but she has really, really bad tendencies and really terrible decision-making skills. Then the other main character is this guy Gus, who’s just an absolute wreck of a human being. He starts out with a long time girlfriend who lies about cheating on him to get him to break up with her. Which is already a f*cked up thing to do on both sides. It’s revealed later that he couldn’t take a hint no matter how forward this girl was with him, and so the only way she could get out of the relationship was to lie about infidelity. Gus and Mickey meet by chance at the end of the first episode at a gas station. Also read- game of thrones fantasy football names.
And then they proceed to go on an entirely unrealistic adventure together, and then, at the end of this adventure, Gus, of course, forms a crust on Mickey. Because, why wouldn’t he? She’s [mockingly] wild and fun, and he’s[serious] boring and weird. She kind of ignores it for a while and, instead, hooks him up with her roommate, Bertie who is the cutest character in the whole show, and also the most realistic if you ask me. The absolute wreck of their date is [exaggerated] SO painful to watch, but Mickey finds it entertaining anyway. So they [Gus and Bertie] come home from their date and decide that they’re just going to be friends because clearly they’re not compatible.
And that’s when Mickey decides that she has a crush on Gus, practically out of nowhere. Up until then, she’d insisted that he’s a good friend and probably just fun at parties, but he’s…he’s not. What happens after Mickey decides to date Gus is that this really interesting woman is made into a complete mess. Like more of a mess than she was before. You know from the beginning that she’s all over the place, but halfway through the series, she becomes clingy and dependent on validation, and it’s the opposite of how she started.
Like she’s trying to make herself betterand she thinks that Gus is gonna help her do that but really he’s not that great of a person and I don’t think they’re compatible at all. Plus, I don’t believe at all that people can’t fix one each other, especially not when the issues are bigger than either person can handle. Can they be a support system? Sure, but Mickey is putting all of her chips in Gus’s basket and he’s not worth it. Especially not when Gus is notorious for not listening.
Throughout episode 7, called “Magic,” Mickey repeatedly says she doesn’t want to do certain things – specifically, to go to this Magic Club thing that Gus has a membership into. But he just pushes his point until Mickey gives in and does what he wants. Granted, her ideas aren’t really that muchbetter than his, but they could come to some kind of common ground and actually communicate. She becomes really complain-y and means, and he is just totally ignorant of her needs and wants. She thinks that the things he likes are stupid and he doesn’t care about what she likes at all. They’re entirely wrong for one another.