the magicians is coming!

For those wondering: cookies were made!

For those that weren't wondering or even knew this was a subject (everyone): The Magicians. We're a month away from season four and it's time to navel gaze. Not much though, as I'm still recovering from Eliot's latest pic of looking like an ironically emo heroin addicted hipster. His eyeliner alone....

Right. If you have not seen it, it's on Netflix and you really need to see it.

Short version: first seven episodes, you may get into it despite this or hate it because of these two things (probably other stuff, but these were my "if Eliot wasn't so hot I'd be out of here...Eliot's breathing again nm". No spoilers but food for thought if you go.

1.) You're going to keep getting distracted by obvious plotholes.

They aren't plotholes.

2.) You feel like you missed some crucial scenes that should connect some of this.

You didn't; see 1.



It still is pathetically a shock to me for a show--ANY SHOW--to have not 'plotline involving serious mental illness let us discuss for forty five minutes and forget' but "show in which mental illness is part of life and weaves in and out of the plot but never actually goes away and will be back". It has all the shitty ways you cope and all the ways it fucks you up and how you don't get over it you just live with it and sometimes it's better and sometimes its worse and sometimes it's almost like it's not even there and sometimes you're know you're about one bad morning from jumping off a bridge.

I'm not arguing this is the best handling of mental illness in episodic TV because I'm honestly not sure if any other show' done this. It created multiple characters with mental illness who react differently and on a range of coping/not coping/feeling even if they have the same type of mental illness. Like maybe each person is differnet? So how they experience and cope is different? YOU DON'T SAY?




First season involves one incident of rape. It's not graphic, but its upsetting as fuck. The show goes out of its way to strip out any hint that this is anything other than horrific and follows up with the physical and emotional aftermath without blinking. This will also be a continuing plotline including the character's ongoing PTSD and depression as a result.

It does not forward any man's plotline, it is not an excuse for personal growth or finding yourself, and it's the catalyst for things to really get shitty.


ETA: Comments include more of trigger above.

Comments

Re: trigger warning for rape

[toujours_nigel]

It's so unflinching I found it both easier and harder to watch than I usually do rape scenes. Usually I struggle whether they go the titillation or the torture route, but the camera work was very very careful in that it skated right on the edge of unbearable, and as you say allowed Julia her valour and her dignity through it.

I... want to say Black Sails did as good a job re: sexual violence, but I'm not entirely sure. And of course Julia's isn't the only case of sexual abuse/violence in the show and as with the rest of it, the proliferation(?) helps.

Re: trigger warning for rape

[seperis]

It's so unflinching I found it both easier and harder to watch than I usually do rape scenes. Usually I struggle whether they go the titillation or the torture route, but the camera work was very very careful in that it skated right on the edge of unbearable, and as you say allowed Julia her valour and her dignity through it.

Unflinching--yes, that's the word, and I think that was aimed at the viewer. We were supposed to watch the event and understand it and feel it, but it wasn't going to let us gawk at her. And I can't believe I am earnestly arguing the camera had a point of view and feelings but here we are.

Re: trigger warning for rape

[toujours_nigel]

And I can't believe I am earnestly arguing the camera had a point of view and feelings but here we are.

Cameras absolutely do, though; otherwise interpellation wouldn't work. And in this show the camera is very good about what feelings and perspectives it prefers and allows in the audience. You can of course read against the grain, but it's a rare show where marginalised people don't have to, y'know? I can feel a rewatch coming on.

Re: trigger warning for rape

[kore]

Oh I think that totally makes sense -- even if the camera is just a tool and doesn't have feelings, the people looking through it and setting up the shows and staging the scenes and writing the dialogue do, and I think those scenes were so striking because they way they were set up and filmed were so different from how we typically see rape on TV.