Category: tv/movies

A Defense of “PAW Patrol”

January 21st, 2026

PAW Patrol: parents love to hate it. It’s the worst! It’s so ubiquitous. It’s so annoying. It’s so bad for kids’ brains. I used to feel this way, too.

Since I’m apparently now in the business of defending TV shows that other people hate, allow me, if you will, to make my little case here for PAW Patrol.

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My kids were never supposed to watch PAW Patrol. As a new mom, I found it revolting. I never wanted them to see it, or even know about it. Nowadays, I love it; I’m a big fan, and we watch it together on the regular.

So what happened?

It started with string cheese. At their grandparents’ house, my kids were given string cheese sticks that had images of PAW Patrol characters printed on the packaging. Thus, they began to learn the different characters’ names and colors. Soon they could identify them on sight when they saw them in other locations. Putting cartoon characters on food packaging really is a genius marketing move.

My kids’ intensifying fascination with these characters from the packaging on string cheese (and diapers, and graham crackers, and kids’ shampoo, and pretty much everything else for kids), led to me at last, begrudgingly, allowing them to view clips of the show in our own home. Then, when I was in the first trimester with my fourth baby, and sick 24/7, I finally gave up the fight and just let them binge-watch full episodes on Paramount+. Just all day long: PAW Patrol!, PAW Patrol!, be there on the double!

But I hated it. I hated the lazy animation style, the skull-piercing voices, the brainless music, the sheer idiotic absurdity of the plotlines, and above all, the way my kids were so obsessed with it. Just ask the internet: they say that PAW Patrol was basically lab-created (that’s laboratory, not Labrador retriever) to hypnotize your kids and get them addicted.

What garbage. I resented it, but permitted it anyway because for a couple months there I was too sick to do much of anything at all, and by the time the sickness faded around week 20, my kids were hopelessly hooked.

As time went on, I occasionally tried to banish PAW Patrol from our house, thinking it was in my kids’ best interest. I’d pack up all the plastic toy pups and their plastic vehicles, the plastic cups and plastic placemats and all the plastic merch and chuck it in a plastic trash bag and hide it in the basement because I didn’t have the heart to just throw it away entirely.

“From now on, we will only watch wholesome shows like Little Bear and Puffin Rock,” I told myself firmly. “If I just never show them PAW Patrol again, never buy any more PAW Patrol shit and never breathe another word about it from this moment forth, they have to forget about it at some point, right? From this day on, we will be a proper old-fashioned Catholic family, cleansed of the stains of all that worldly garbage!”

Inevitably, the merch would come back out several weeks or days later, because my kids asked for it and I am a softie.

Recently, I got sick of this cycle, and decided to just let go ahead and let them have their beloved PAW Patrol.

Why? What happened?

I think the biggest factor in this decision was my realization that my oldest is about to turn six, and pretty soon, she won’t even be interested in PAW Patrol anymore. She will outgrow it, probably within a year or so. My nephew, who’s only nine months older than she is, is already over PAW Patrol, and on to more mature six-year-old things. Those days will soon be upon me. And it’s actually heartbreaking: the passage of time, how quickly your baby grows up. I’ll wake up tomorrow and none of my kids will care about PAW Patrol anymore. And I’ll look back on these days and wish for just one more minute of their precious innocence.

Because that’s what PAW Patrol is. It’s innocent. I mean, come on: it’s a show about superhero puppies. If you actually sit down and watch it, you will see just how innocent it is. The music, the animation, the way the characters dress and talk: it’s all very childish, very clean and simple. It lacks the glossy flashiness and Hollywoodesque aspirations toward tweenhood that you see in something like Super Kitties (which I abhor, and nipped that obsession in the bud without a trace of guilt) or KPop Demon Hunters. It also lacks the purely hypnotic, mindless, brain-numbing singsong quality of something like Cocomelon. PAW Patrol is just simple, colorful, back-to-basics animation with childlike stories and dialogue. There’s nothing sinister, nothing suggestive of anything more mature, and the “jokes” are painfully simple; that’s exactly why kids age out of it around six or seven.

And the stories in PAW Patrol are all about helping people. That’s the whole gist of the show: cooperation is fun, you can do hard things, and helping others is cool. Literally what is the issue?

“Lab created to hijack your kids’ brains and stupefy them” – blah blah, enough with that. Sure, it’s not high quality edifying stuff, but PAW Patrol isn’t going to make good kids bad. Like most worldly pleasures, PAW Patrol can be enjoyed responsibly, in moderation. My kids are not iPad kids. They have never owned a tablet. They love reading books, drawing, playing pretend, and going outside; they’re decently well-behaved; and all of them are highly intellectually advanced for their ages. And they also happen to love PAW Patrol.

So, I’m not convinced that all of the paranoia about PAW Patrol “ruining our kids’ minds” isn’t just a bunch of tin foil hat-type blathering. I really think people love to hate things that are popular. Back in the days when novels were a recent innovation, people thought those were brainrot and a waste of time, too. Probably thirty years from now, PAW Patrol will be considered vintage and cool and “crunchy” the way Little Bear is now. Hating PAW Patrol is just as much a trend as the show itself; change my mind. Being rational: there’s simply not sufficient reason to banish PAW Patrol entirely.

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Admittedly though, my change of heart about PAW Patrol was not entirely rational. My decision was based, about 75, maybe 80 percent, on emotion.

For one, there was the aforementioned realization that my sweet babies are growing up quickly, and all too soon will no longer care a whit about PAW Patrol. You ever feel homesick for a place while you’re already there?

And for two: after a year to eighteen months or so of PAW Patrol being part of our lives, it’s gradually become, well, just that: a part of our lives. It’s weird. In the beginning, PAW Patrol felt to me like this malignant force that encroached upon my family from without. But now, for better or for worse, it has become part of us, woven into the fabric of our family life. And I like our life. The citizens of Adventure Bay have become good friends of mine, by now.

“You’re just being a lazy mom, Mith! If you really cared about your kids’ well-being, you wouldn’t show them this filth at all, much less let it infiltrate your lives to such an extent.”

Ah, the “lazy mom” accusation. Yes, this one gets thrown at moms on the internet all the time, whenever they have the audacity to try to make life easier. I honestly think people just hate moms and want them to suffer (and sometimes it’s moms who hate on other moms in this way, which imo just betrays a very-thinly-veiled self-loathing and a deep frustration with their own lives). As moms, we are, believe it or not, actually allowed to choose the easy way sometimes. Like most things, it’s not black and white (“giving screen time at all means you’re a failure!” “You don’t love your kids if you don’t cook them three meals a day from scratch!” etc.); it’s a matter of moderation. “Lazy” because sometimes I want my kids to sit still and be quiet so that I can give one of them a bath, or clean the house or, God forbid, sit down and drink a cup of coffee or something? Sure, why not. Call me lazy if you want. My kids are happy, healthy, intelligent, and loved; I’m solo parenting and homeschooling them (four five and under) on a tight budget, with no village around me, but, sure, go off I guess.

Not trying to say that I have it harder than anyone else. Parenting is hard, no matter what your situation. This is not the suffering olympics. PAW Patrol makes things a bit more fun and easy at times. And as far as I can see it does no harm. So try again to explain to me why it’s so bad.

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Finally, just for fun: being a Catholic mom and a PAW Patrol mom, I’ve taken the liberty of assigning a patron saint to each of the pups:

Chase: St. Michael the Archangel, the Prince of the Heavenly Host and defender against demons.

Skye: St. Joseph of Cupertino, obviously: famous for levitating during prayer.

Rocky: St. Joseph the Worker: quiet, responsible, happy to be in the background, good with tools.

Marshall: St. Lawrence, who was a comedian and, like Marshall, associated with fire.

Zuma: St. Brendan the Navigator, famous for sailing across oceans and exploring the world.

Rubble: St. Thomas Aquinas: bit of a counterintuitive choice, maybe, but Aquinas was a chunky fellow who was nicknamed “the dumb ox,” so I think he might actually identify with Rubble the most out of all the pups.

Is PAW Patrol a good Catholic show? No, of course not. It’s very secular. In their holiday special, they even said some cheesy line like “the real meaning of Christmas is giving!” – thankfully, my five-year-old heard that and exclaimed “no, the real meaning of Christmas is the Birth of Jesus!” Which led to a good conversation about how we need to share the Gospel with those who haven’t heard it. See? It may not be a good Catholic show, per se, but it can be part of a good Catholic life.

That’s the thing. It’s not good. It’s not bad. It’s just (if you’re a toddler parent in 2026 who doesn’t literally live under a rock) a part of life.

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I imagine one day when I’m old and gray and an empty nester, I’ll be sitting alone in my clean, quiet living room, reminiscing, and I’ll look around at the emptiness and lack of clutter and toys, and sigh, and pick up the remote with my withered, liver-spotted hand and switch on some PAW Patrol, just for old time’s sake, and probably sing softly along with the songs, PAW Patrol!, PAW Patrol!, in my creaky lonely old-lady voice: be there on the double! And I like to think that I won’t have too many regrets.
“Run Away” (2026): a Defense, & a Complaint

January 16th, 2026

Caution: Spoilers for the limited series “Run Away” (2026) on Netflix, which is based on the book by Harlan Coben, so this probably contains spoilers for the book too.

The Defense

Wait, so I just Googled and saw that apparently people are hating on this show? What, why? FFS. Redditors really are the most insufferable people. They hate everything, including each other and everyone else. Every time I decide to casually check something on Reddit, I always leave feeling like I need a shower. All of the criticisms in this discussion – “this was stupid,” “that was stupid” – I must really be incredibly stupid indeed, then, because I loved this show.

Okay, I will admit that it did overuse the “dramatic musical sting” effect, especially in that one scene. And I will also give them this, that it did seem totally out of the blue how Simon randomly remembered his wife’s old modelling photos at the end of the show like that; that seemed to come out of the blue. Maybe the circumstances leading to his decision were explained better in the book.

As for the Reddit remarks about gun ownership in the UK and the availability of same-day DNA test results for significantly less than 10K, I can’t comment on that, other than to say that, for me as an ignorant American, it was convincing enough. I once had a writing professor tell me that fiction writers don’t necessarily have to get everything 100% realistic and accurate – they just have to be confident and sell it. And IMO, Harlan Coben really sold it.

One other minor complaint that my husband and I had was: why is the wife in a medically-induced coma for weeks after a shot to the shoulder, when Simon suffered pretty much the same exact injury and was out and about just a few days later? We kept wondering why she was still comatose, lol. Maybe this, too, is explained better in the book.

And now that they mention it, I guess it was pretty silly that Paige was just in rehab the whole time. Like really? While a missing persons report was active? And while her dad was running around getting in all kinds of trouble with drug dealers and such? The wife and her sister knew all along but were keeping it a secret, even through all of this high-stakes drama, simply because Paige has asked them to because she didn’t want Dad to be disappointed? That was the whole reason? 🤔 Imagine how Ingrid will feel when she finds out her husband blew 70k on this while she was asleep. 70k! In retrospect, the rehab thing just didn’t feel like an expensive enough secret.

However: none of these issues took away from my enjoyment of the show while I was watching it. I guess that makes me an idiot. Oh well, that’s not news to any of us around here, is it?

I agree that glaring plot holes do ruin the effect of a story… but I guess in the case of “Run Away,” the holes were, well, not exactly “small/minor” enough, but “sold” well enough that they just didn’t bother me. They blended in. It didn’t feel lazy. It’s like how some people pay good money for ripped jeans. Sure they have holes, but it works!, they look cool!

Like a great pair of ripped jeans, this show, as entertainment, is a 10/10 from me. It’s everything I needed it to be. The storytelling, the pacing, the characters, the twists – no complaints there. Totally engrossing. Just peak escapism.

I’ve never read any Harlan Coben books before, but now I think I probably will. As you know if you read this blog, I am very much in awe of mystery/suspense writers. They’re like sorcerers to me. The ability to captivate a reader/viewer like that, and hold their whole attention span and their emotions in the palm of your hand — to be so wildly entertaining that you can get away with a plot hole or two: it’s a superpower. I’d love to know how they do that.

This was, in some ways, a pretty standard crime thriller – formulaic, some even said – but there were a few things it did that kind of flipped the stereotype on its head, which particularly delighted me:

1, When Elena’s “tech person,” the computer whiz who can hack into anywhere and find out anything online, is her little 75 year old MIL, Lou.

2, Isaac + Ruby’s relationship. I know all the Reddit critics called it “unnecessary,” and maybe it was, but if we always boil a story down to just what’s “necessary,” what are we left with? A single Tweet? A 20-second reel? Why even read (or watch), if you only want what’s “necessary”? Come on now. Imo the love story added something of value. And the thing I really liked about it was, for once we see a very fit, conventionally-attractive man completely enamored of a heavyset woman with a sharp wit and sense of humor. And she seems to wield the power in their relationship: he wants to go public with it, she wants to keep it a secret because of work. Not to mention the way she objectifies him for fun, lol. I’m very much here for this role reversal (and their happy ending).

3, Professor VdB actually being a good guy. It would have been so easy to include another tropey, creepy male professor. I’m kinda glad they showed that it was actually just rumors perpetuated by thirsty female students.

Overall, 10/10 entertainment. I will say though that I had just one serious complaint about the plot. And it is more of a philosophical disagreement than a technical criticism.

The Complaint

When Elena finds out that her dead husband’s secret child was the product of not an affair, but of his so generously donating his sperm to a female friend who wanted to have a baby… and never telling his wife about it… and this exonerates him, in her eyes? She can now forgive him? 🤮 As I told my husband, I would actually much rather he have some passionate affair with another woman than deliberately conceive a child with another woman. Because the latter is so much more serious! Passion is fleeting and meaningless, but the human soul, joined to the body at the moment of conception, is eternal. And the fact that Joel did this knowing that Elena, his wife, couldn’t conceive a child – what a slap in the face! If I were Elena, I wouldn’t have gone and gotten myself killed because I’d be too busy trying to get a posthumous divorce, and/or drawing dicks all over Joel’s headstone with a Sharpie.

For me as a Catholic, this whole brushing off of the seriousness of Joel’s offense as “a selfless favor for a friend,” is just a glaring symptom of our culture’s distorted views on human reproduction. Children are not commodities that you can just decide to piece together at your convenience just because you want one. (Ironic, that this gross offense is cast in such a positive light in this show, while in the same breath the show decries illegal adoptions and the selling of babies, when these two are basically the same thing.) Children are the fruit of the singular, sacred love between husband + wife, co-created by God and entrusted by Him to those parents. When people try to play God with “reproductive technology,” surrogacy, sperm donation, what have you, it distorts that design. (And all kinds of bad things happen: surrogate mothers forced to undergo abortion if the “customer” changes their mind; wrong embryos implanted in the wrong mothers; not to mention the emotional/psychological distress and confusion that comes from being cut off from your biological relations (I mean just look at the whole plot of this show!); & et cetera.) Your DNA, your lineage, isn’t just something you should give away to a buddy or sell to someone who wants to buy it. Children are not products to be bought and sold.

In Conclusion

But, to step off my little soapbox, that’s the only thing that pissed me off about the show. Everything else is excusable, even Elena stupidly hopping in that car with Dee Dee, which was out of character for her. Super entertaining show, tight twists and turns, suspenseful as heck, even some bonus beautiful British scenery thrown in; don’t listen to those bitter Redditors who never like anything anyway.

I especially loved the slightly ambiguous ending. A lingering question is such a juicy cherry on top of a story, for me. Will he tell Ingrid the truth about Aaron, or will he not? IMO, he absolutely should not. Because what good would that accomplish? Why burden her with that knowledge? He better take that secret to the grave. But if you disagree, my inbox is always open, feel free to make your case.
Watching “Adolescence” as a Catholic Mom

September 18th, 2025

Needless to say, this post contains spoilers for the show Adolescence.

A month or so ago, my husband and I watched Adolescence, which as you probably know is a highly critically-acclaimed British limited series, released earlier this year, available on Netflix. Which, btw, I just saw that that young actor just became the youngest boy ever to win an Emmy; well deserved, he acted the heck out of that role, damn. And I guess it was nominated for a ton of other Emmys as well, so I needn’t waste any time talking about what a good show it is. Personally I love the limited series format, and I wish that more shows would limit themselves to just one season; all too often, the creators keep on dragging things along long after the story’s died and rotted, just because there’s money to be had, and it’s disgusting.

But so anyway, as you know if you read this blog, I am a really stupid person and not any kind of critic or anything, so I can’t contribute anything of value to the existing discussions of this show. I don’t pay any attention to the whole “redpill” thing or to whoever Andrew Tate is, so I can’t comment on any of that, although it did seem painfully obvious to me that whoever wrote this show has like intense personal beef with this Andrew Tate. I haven’t been inside of a high school in seventeen years (thanks be to God), so I can’t comment much on the state of public education, either, although from what I’ve heard this show depicted it very accurately, which, yikes.

No, as is the case on this entire blog, I have no expertise, so the only thing I can really put out there is my personal reaction, in case anyone out there, like me, just wants to talk about it. And for me, the big takeaway, the thing that I was left thinking about for days and weeks afterwards, was: do we have any control, then, over who we are, and how our kids turn out?

As a mom of little kids, I worry about this a lot. Maybe it’s a “millennial mom” thing, but it gives me a lot of anxiety, trying not to mess up my kids. I always overthink about every single thing I say to them, and worry that I’m psychologically damaging them no matter what I do. At the end of the day: “I was too mean and strict, they’re going to be traumatized and go no-contact with me as soon as they’re grown up, and rightfully so!” Or: “I was too lenient, I’m spoiling them, what would my priest say?!, they’re not going to have any sense of respect or discipline, I am one of ‘those’ modern parents, I am part of what’s wrong with society!” It seems that no matter what I say, I always look back on it at the end of the day and think that I should have said the opposite. No matter what I do, I am damaging them somehow, and setting them up for a future full of misery and expensive psychotherapy. But, how much control do I actually have over my kids’ outcome?

In the last episode of Adolescence, it seemed like the show was simultaneously blaming Jamie’s parents, and excusing them from culpability for his actions. Yes, it was their fault, because Dad had unresolved anger issues and was at work all the time, and Mom didn’t pay attention to the warning signs, like the way that Jamie was just in his room on the computer all the time. But, also, Dad couldn’t really help it, could he, because his own dad was violent with him, and Jamie’s dad was just doing the best he could, trying to contain his rage and not take it out on his kids (but instead on things like sheds and vans). And I guess the idea was that Mom wasn’t really at fault because she lives in a world where teenagers sitting on their computers all day is normalized. Both parents were, in their ways, just products of their own upbringing and environment.

Aren’t we all? How much control do I even have over myself and my own choices? I’m not going to talk about whether or not free will exists. That question is too mind-bendy for me. As a Catholic, I know that it is somehow both true that free will exists and that God has the ultimate power as well as foreknowledge of how everything will end up – that I simultaneously have control over my actions and have no control whatsoever, which is confusing, but it makes sense as long as you don’t think about it too hard, because it certainly appears true that we have free will, and it feels weird to think otherwise. As you can tell I’m far from equipped to talk about such lofty subjects as free will.

So I guess the question here is, can anyone ever not be just a product of their own upbringing and environment? Can anyone ever not doom their children to be just products of their upbringing and environment? Is it really all just one big hopeless vicious cycle of disorder and trauma?

I admittedly stress about this a lot, and that stress definitely swelled up again, for a while, after watching Adolescence. But fortunately for me, I am, as I already mentioned, Catholic, and in the Catholic Church, we are shown the way to freedom – to breaking that hopeless cycle.

Sure, as long as you’re just being yourself, living according to your own human limitations, seeking no more than as much human satisfaction as you can get, you’re going to be stuck in the cycle. You’re probably doomed to misery. I do not know this firsthand, as I am definitely not a saint, but I know from reading the lives of the saints, that the only way to escape that cycle – to breach the surface of these whirling murky waters of human pain and struggle, and finally take a breath of air – is to become a saint. I’m pretty sure that’s the only way to be actually free. A saint is the only kind of person who’s entirely free from the world and all its emotional/psychic/material anguish. A saint lives entirely in the truth.

Hm, so, does that mean that, if I’m not a literal saint, I’m doomed to be a shitty parent, and my kids are doomed to generational trauma?

Well, first of all, I think there’s a common misconception about saints that they never do a single thing wrong. That’s not what a saint is. The saints are not the same as Christ or the Blessed Mother. On earth, they weren’t perfect. They sometimes get things wrong. But the thing that made them saints was that they loved God very much and were entirely devoted to doing His will, not their own. They are already living in eternity; they have their priorities straight. But they’re still people, i.e. imperfect. So, I don’t think it’s necessarily true that one must never ever make a single mistake in order to be a good parent, to raise mentally-healthy kids.

What, then, is the secret? – No, really, can somebody tell me? Lol. I try to do my best, but my oldest is still only five, so despite having four kids, I’m still quite new at this.

I figure probably one of the most important things one can do, when it comes to raising kids who are free from the vicious cycle that is the human condition – i.e., kids who have the best chance at true happiness – is to pass on the Faith to them. That is the most important thing that we can give them. But of course, we should also practice what we preach. It’s not going to help our kids much if we teach certain habits and virtues but behave completely differently in our own everyday lives. That will just lead to confusion and fallen-away souls. The responsibility of being a Catholic parent is incredibly daunting. Which is why stories like Adolescence make me so anxious. Am I doing enough to save my kids? Am I doing enough, am I doing enough, am I doing enough?? If you’re a mom, even a secular mom, you get it!

I’m never doing enough, it seems – but, at least my children will know their Blessed Mother, who is perfect, and who will never fail them like I inevitably will to some degree.

It’s always interesting to me when secular stories like this accidentally profess the truth of God and His infinite love. Yes, every person is indeed doomed to a cycle of hopelessness and ruin, evil and pain, if they try to live without God. I guess all good art tells us something about God, really, and that’s why it is good.
Is it ok to separate the artist from the art?

August 4th, 2025

(Caution: spoilers for Sandman season two!)

I ask this today because, currently, my husband and I are watching, and really enjoying, season two of The Sandman. But this is not the first time I’ve had the occasion to worry about this particular question.

As you may know, I’m a huge fan of David Foster Wallace, whom some people out there claim ought to be “canceled” because of certain shitty things that he did to people during his life. I’m also a fan of certain songs by Chris Brown, as well as makeup products and tutorials by Jeffree Star, both of whom have also done shitty things in the past. I’m sure that plenty more of my favorite writers/celebrities have done problematic, cancel-worthy things, but these are just the few that come to mind at the moment.

Am I a bad person for continuing to allow myself to enjoy The Sandman? (The show specifically, not the books; I did read the first book or two, back in like 2015, because my boyfriend at the time (who’s now my husband) was a huge fan of the series; I thought they were pretty cool, but they didn’t captivate me enough to want to read the rest; plus, the bf admitted to me that he’d long had a crush on the character Death, which obviously pissed me off and turned me off from the whole series, lol.) Am I a bad person for continuing to enjoy DFW, Chris Brown, and Jeffree Star, even though I know they’ve done inexcusable things? Can we separate the artist from the art? Or, more importantly, should we?

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I have a lot of things I could say about The Sandman from a Catholic POV – how sometimes it completely misses (it presents an inaccurate picture of God and religion in general, and also, it unfortunately gets pretty woke), but other times gets it beautifully right (like with the character of Fiddler’s Green, who’s inspired by the brilliant Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton; or like with some of the ideas about heaven and hell and who goes to hell and why; or like that scene in season two where the Pope “approves female priests” (I was starting to throw up a little in my mouth) and then we see that the “Pope” is actually Loki in disguise and the real Pope is locked up in a faerie-dust-induced coma somewhere, lol; that was actually not too far from accurate, I mean obviously Loki is fictional, but it is true that evil, the smoke of satan, has corrupted the heart of the Church!). But, I won’t go into all of that here, because the question at hand is not whether the show is good, but whether it’s okay to like this show at all, knowing that its author is probably guilty of sexually assaulting multiple women. (I say “probably” because I don’t know if it was ever definitively “proven” that he did, and I like to always give people the benefit of the doubt; but I did read that the evidence against him is really strong, and that he apparently even paid large sums of money to multiple people to get them to keep quiet about him, which really doesn’t look good for him, unfortunately.)

Can we separate the artist from the art? Well, whether one can or not is subjective, isn’t it?

For me, in the case of The Sandman, I both can and cannot. I’m still able to enjoy the show. I’m enjoying it very much! But, at the same time, I can’t really forget, even while watching the show, about the allegations. Like, the whole plot thread about the Lady Nuala being “gifted” to Morpheus to do with whatever he liked… knowing that that was written by a dude who SAs women, kinda gave me the ick. Pretty much all of the sexual scenes gave me an extra bit of ick, honestly. I already dislike sex scenes, but they’re even more repulsive when you know that they originated in the mind of a rapist.

So, my enjoyment of the art is definitely colored by what I know about the artist. But, for me personally, it’s not to the point where I can’t enjoy the art. Because it’s also a really compelling story, and I have to know what happens! I guess if the story were less good, it wouldn’t be worth sitting through the moments where I remember and get the ick; but for me, in this case, it balances out.

However, I imagine if I were a family member of one of his victims, I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to tolerate it at all. If I were the mother of one of those victims, there’s no way I could stand to watch even a single second of this show, or to read a single word of anything NG ever wrote! Or if I were myself a survivor of SA, I might have a stronger reaction.

But, shouldn’t I – as a Christian especially! – be so empathetic as to be unable to tolerate anything NG ever wrote? Isn’t it a moral failing that I’m not disgusted enough to boycott The Sandman? I ought to love my fellow humans so much that their suffering is personal to me, even if they’re not my daughter or myself. Right?

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Another example people like to bring up w/r/t the whole artist/art separation issue is Hitler’s paintings. We all know that Hitler painted pictures, and that he applied to art school and was rejected. If you’ve ever seen his pictures, you know that they’re really not bad. They’re technically very good. They’re kind of soulless, lacking a certain vitality or warmth or emotion or something, but as architectural drawings, they’re very nice!

Is it okay to look at, for example, Hitler’s painting of Neuschwanstein Castle, and enjoy it? It’s a pretty picture. I wouldn’t hang it on my wall or anything, but, what if someone else wanted to? What if someone else just really likes a nice technically-proficient but heartless painting of a building? Would it be a moral failing for that person, knowing who the artist was and what he did, to purchase a print of that painting, frame it, and hang it on the wall in their house? There was an episode about this in season one of Justified, actually!: there was a character who was an avid collector of Hitler paintings, and yes, the guy was a scumbag! But, in theory, could you enjoy Hitler’s artwork without being a scumbag yourself? I’m not sure; I kind of think not. His crimes were so horrific that I really can’t see how anyone with an iota of knowledge of history could possibly separate the artist from the art, in that case.

But shouldn’t I feel the same way about NG as I do about Hitler? – Is the former as bad as the latter? I think not. Hitler is like the go-to example when talking about moral problems, but perhaps it’s not fair to always compare people to him. Even if so, does that make it okay to enjoy The Sandman, just because raping several people isn’t as objectively bad as murdering zillions of them?

Should we permit ourselves to separate artist from art, even if we can? Shouldn’t we boycott content from bad people on principle, even if we’re tempted to enjoy it because it’s fun?

On this same note, let’s think about Chris Brown. Super talented artist! I’m pretty obsessed with some of his songs. I still listen to them, even knowing what he did to Rihanna. Is that a moral failing on my part? Shouldn’t I be so horrified by his actions that I just can’t stomach the sound of his voice? I imagine, if I were Rihanna’s mom, I’d feel that way; but shouldn’t I, as a mom of girls – as a Christian – as a human being!! – have that reaction anyway?! I probably should.

But, even if I’m not repulsed by the sound of his voice, shouldn’t I boycott his music on principle, because I know it’s the right thing to do?

This one, I’m not so sure about. Chris Brown, DFW, and Jeffree Star: these are all people who, as I personally see it, made mistakes in their past which they regretted. They have dark pasts, they were deeply troubled – which is not an excuse for hurting others, not at all, because you can be a troubled person without hurting others; but it does explain why they behaved the way they did, because people who are hurt do tend to hurt others. It’s not right, but it’s a common symptom. But, such people can grow and change and see where they messed up and work on themselves and be better. Which I know Jeffree and Chris both did. (DFW, I’m not sure about the details, but I know that he was in a committed monogamous relationship at the time of his death, which I’ve read was healthy and unproblematic; and from what I’ve read about him, he didn’t exactly feel great about the way he’d handled his earlier relationships.) People like this, repentant sinners, I find it easier to empathize with and forgive than someone like Hitler. So, I’m not sure if I agree that these people deserve to be canceled. NG doesn’t seem like a repentant sinner, though. To the best of my knowledge, he’s basically admitted to being an asshole, but not to committing any crimes. He probably does deserve to be canceled.

So why am I not participating in the canceling? Why am I still loving this show so much?

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What are my motivations here, anyway?

There are certain celebrities that I cannot stomach because of their nasty behavior. Mr. Maroon 5, for example, and Marilyn Manson. However, this may be more of a personal distaste issue than a moral issue.

Yes, it was gross that Mr. Maroon 5 cheated on his pregnant wife; but, I still like to listen to Gavin Rossdale, who also cheated on his wife, which makes me think maybe it’s not that I’m so repulsed by cheaters, but rather that Mr. Maroon 5 as a performer has this weaselish and squirmy persona, and sounds like a goose when he sings, while Gavin Rossdale has literally the best singing voice of any male out there, and seems like a cool person otherwise. Similarly, Marilyn Manson: he’s done some disgusting stuff, yes, but that only augments my pre-existing dislike of his music. It’s just not my cup of tea.

And meanwhile, I’m a big fan of Ronnie Radke, who obviously has done some bad shit in the past, for which everyone still wants to cancel him. I will defend him to the death though! He seems like a really smart and good-hearted person who keeps things real (yes, his roast reels are kind of unhinged, but come on, as a rock star it’s his job to be unhinged and entertaining; plus, people shouldn’t start shit online if they don’t want to get roasted, lol, Ronnie never comes for people without being provoked). I’d put him in the “repentant sinners” category mentioned above, because he did his time for the mistakes of his youth, and nowadays he does a lot of good for people and for the music industry at large.

However: this makes me wonder: am I biased here because Gavin Rossdale and Ronnie Radke are both very beautiful people, while Marilyn Manson and Adam Levine are not? I wonder if I’m letting aesthetics color my perception. I know it’s been proven that people tend to perceive attractive people as smarter, better, and more capable, and to perceive ugly people as dumber and worse all-around. I’m pretty sure I’m being fair here, but I have to wonder. It’s like how, if you kill an earthworm, it’s fine, no one cares, but if you kill a butterfly you’re a sick and nasty person and why would you do that. But is the worm really any worse than the butterfly?

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Anyway.

Long story short, I do not know if it’s a moral failing that I’m watching, and really enjoying, The Sandman season two.

Maybe some might argue that it’s actually a good thing, to be able to appreciate the good products of someone who’s otherwise bad. Isn’t that how God sees us, after all? God sees both the bad and the good in us, and loves us regardless of our behavior. And a good, virtuous action always glorifies God, even if the person who did it has also done a lot of bad actions. And producing a beautiful work of art is a good action. Good inspirations don’t come from our corrupt humanity; they come from God, and they teach us about God. So, maybe it’s not bad to be able to enjoy a work of good art created by a bad person.

There are things Good and True and Beautiful in The Sandman, as also in Infinite Jest and other stories by DFW. It would be sad and misguided to just chuck all of these stories in the trash because they came from sources that are corrupted – which we all are, to a certain extent, after all.

So if I had to attempt to make a conclusion here, which I’m not sure I can, I’d say that, well, maybe it’s a matter of balance?: if it’s a really good piece of art, and the artist who made it has any redeeming qualities or humanity left in them – then, perhaps, there’s nothing necessarily morally wrong with being able to enjoy their work (although it’s certainly understandable that some people would prefer not to). But in the case of someone like Hitler, where the artwork is just okay and the evil he committed is so incomprehensibly staggering and cold-blooded and large-scale, then you’d probably have to be a pretty messed-up person to really enjoy his art.

I don’t think you can really call someone a bad person for enjoying the works of Neil Gaiman or Chris Brown – as long as the fan in question isn’t making excuses for the bad behavior of those artists. We can recognize that they did something evil and that the art they made is good. Such is life. Sinful people can still do good things and create good things.
TOP 10: Ranking “Yellowjackets” characters by how much I’d like to have coffee with them

March 7th, 2025

Caution: SPOILERS for season 1 and 2 of Yellowjackets!

Keep in mind that, as I write this, I have finished season two, but not yet started season three, so these rankings are based entirely off of the first two seasons. I’ve heard it said that the show jumps the shark after season two, which, I really hope it doesn’t, because these first two seasons were phenomenal. But I won’t be surprised if it does, because, let’s be honest, it’s pretty rare that a show actually maintains its season one and two energy into the third season and beyond.

(ETA: Sad to confirm that it did jump the shark. I’m now two episodes into season three, and may have to quit; disappointed is an understatement. Did they fire all their old writers and replace them with a team of middle school students? What the heck?! But, season one and two are still gold.)

This show is exceptional, for me, thus far, in that it sticks with me more than most other shows I enjoy. I’ve dreamed about this show at least three times since starting it, which, I never dream about shows or movies, no matter how much I like them! My favorite show ever is probably Succession, and I adore its cast of characters, but I’ve had exactly zero dreams about it. I’ve never even dreamed about the movie The Wicker Man (’06), and I literally wrote fanfiction about that one.

I wonder what it is about this show. I think it’s that it has great characters and a healthy dose of the interpersonal drama/romance that I love so much, but also a simple and truly nightmarish premise. One of my recurring nightmares is that I’ve somehow accidentally committed murder and am now being sought by the police (stemming from all my shame/guilt, or fear of being known for how awful I really am? Idk!), so stories with this plot thread always really get to me! They also use music really well (“Lightning Crashes,” for example: that was genius), which always drives a scene home really strongly and makes it cut extra deep.

I have only two complaints about Yellowjackets: first, predictably, the sexual content is a too heavy and graphic at times, and feels really fanservicey. And second, the “going into labor” scenes were extremely Hollywood. I’m so sick of these TV/movie depictions of labor! Especially as a first time mom, it’d be extremely, extremely unlikely that Shauna would go from zero to 100 like that. Just walking along minding her business and then suddenly she’s doubled over screaming like she’s being murdered? No. I wish the entertainment industry would stop perpetuating this ridiculous idea that this is how labor goes, because 99.9% of the time, it’s not, and it freaks people out (first time moms everywhere be like “what if I go into labor at work?! 😱” girl, no worries if you do!, because tbh you probably still have a few hours before it even gets painful!!). For a more accurate portrayal of early labor, see the Pam going into labor episode of The Office.

But, I digress. For the sake of keeping things concise, I have limited this list to characters who were actually in the wilderness – even though some of the very best characters in the show were not there, especially Jeff, Adam, and Walter. I love all three of these for different reasons: Jeff is just so charmingly normal (the “Last Resort” scene in his car hits the nail on the head), plus his loyalty to his wife is endearing; poor Adam is so pure and sweet; and Walter is just hilariously freaking psychotic.

Not that I’d particularly want to have coffee with any of these characters. Even if they weren’t dangerous, I have AvPD, as you know, which has always formed this thick impenetrable barrier between me and other people. “People that I like and admire and would, in theory, like to befriend” and “people that I can actually hang out with” have often (not always) been very different people, for me, simply because socializing is too hard and scary. Approachability is the main predictor of my ability to hang out with a person. I probably wouldn’t socialize with any of these characters, irl; they’re all sporty and talented and super intimidating. But, if I had to:

14. Mari. She’s just super unpleasant and bitchy! I have yet to see her do or say a single redeeming thing. She certainly wouldn’t like me any more than I like her. She’d probably order something iced and complicated with a long made-up name and an extra shot of this that and the other thing.

13. Travis. Nothing against him, he just doesn’t seem that interesting to me. Just your typical basic guy, and not super outgoing so he probably wouldn’t want to be there. I feel like he’d order a regular Americano, hot, with like one sugar packet but no cream.

12. Taissa. Even if not for the whole creepy red-eyed dissociative murder personality thing, I just don’t think she and I would have much to talk about. She seems super liberal and also a real high-achieving, go-getter type with a lot of money, so, I just don’t find her very relatable. Would love to get her advice on hair care, though, as I also have fine curls and hers are stunning. I bet she’d order something super caffeinated, like just straight shots of espresso.

11. Jackie. She’s actually one of my favorite characters. I like that the show turned the stereotype on its head: with Jackie being the hot rich girl and the group’s ringleader, you expect her to be the most evil, but she’s actually one of the sweetest and kindest and most naïve – poor thing. I don’t think she and I would get along though, lol, girls like her did not click with weird creepy girls like me. She’d definitely order whatever was on trend and in season: a Pink Drink in summer, a pumpkin spice latté in fall, etc.

10. Natalie. She, not Jackie, is the girl I most wanted to be in middle and high school, and if I’d been making this list back then, she’d probably be my #1. I always envied not the preppy girls, but the scene queens, the ones who hung out with the bad guys, the edgy and troubled and dangerous girls who seemed unbothered by rules or anyone’s opinions. But, she’d find me spectacularly boring, I have no doubt, especially with me being sober. For coffee, I’m sure she’d order a basic drip and then spike it with liquor from her purse.

9. Misty. Undoubtedly the most interesting character on the show, and the craziest. I find her, at times, uncomfortably sympathetic. But, I am also terrified of her, and would not want to do anything to get on her bad side, so I’d be on eggshells the entire coffee date, and probably try to keep her talking about benign things like musicals (I hate musicals) and birds. She’d probably order an extra foamy cappuccino with like vanilla or almond flavor.

8. Coach Scott. Poor Coach! I was really rooting for him when he did what he did in the season 2 finale. He might be the last sane one left, at this point. But, with him being a jock and a man and gay, I don’t think we’d have much to talk about over coffee; maybe books? We do see him reading fairly often in the show. I think he’d be the type to order a grande dark roast and add oat milk, but no sugar.

7. Shauna. I find her basically the most relatable character, which is why her storyline disturbs me so much. If she hadn’t been through all that trauma, imagine what she’d be like! She’s a writer like me, so maybe we’d have some things in common. But, I am also terrified of her, and would not actually enjoy hanging out with her for this reason. I can see her ordering something with hazelnut, like a small latté or a macchiato.

6. Van. She seems really chill and likeable, both as a kid and as an adult. I doubt we’d really click, but as adults I’d enjoy picking her brain about ‘90s nostalgia and trivia, and she seems funny. Definitely a plain black coffee type, probably from a McDonald’s drive-thru.

5. Crystal/Kristen. She didn’t deserve her ending! She seems sweet and easy to talk to, so I think a coffee date with her would be pretty pleasant. I think she’d order something frozen and blended with lots of shameless extras, like mocha syrup and chocolate chunks.

4. Javi. Another who didn’t deserve his ending. He’s soft-spoken and awkward like me, so it’d probably be a super awkward coffee date with a lot of long silences. But he’s an artist, as well as a younger sibling, so we might have some things in common. He seems like a tea drinker, maybe black tea.

3. Akilah. I love her! I felt so bad when little Nugget turned out to be a shriveled corpse. She has such a gentle and nurturing personality. I’d love to talk about babies with her. I think she would go for a nice hot latté with a cookie on the side.

2. Lottie. Cult leader antics aside, she seems like a well-intentioned person (volunteering herself as Shauna’s punching bag without even flinching once: damn), as well as obviously highly interesting, with her special abilities and all. I’d be happy to listen to her talk about whatever. Definitely a green tea lady, specifically the loose leaf kind.

And finally, the one I’d be least uncomfortable around:

1. Laura Lee. Obviously! It’s a good thing she died when she did, because she was too good for what befalls the rest of them. Even though she’s Protestant and I’m Catholic, I imagine she and I would have more in common than I would with anyone else on the show. In any case, Christian charity would obligate her to be nice to me even if she didn’t like me, so I think it’d go alright. She would definitely order hot cocoa with marshmallows.
Mith’s Favorite Thing About “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” (2022)

February 14th, 2025

Caution: spoilers

Here I am again, late to the party on a movie that came out in 2022. I am always slow to see new movies.

But I’d been curious about this one for quite some time. I mean, the meme was one of the best of the last several years. Plus, as you may know, I’m unironically a huge fan of Nic Cage, solely because he starred in my personal favorite movie of all time, The Wicker Man (2006) (yes, I unironically love this movie; I have always thought it was creepy and beautiful and captivating, and better than the original (yeah I said it), and have always had a girl-crush on Kate Beahan’s character; this is one of very few movies that I can and do watch over and over again, which, as you can imagine, just delights my husband).

But so I didn’t really know what I was expecting, when we started watching Unbearable Weight. I knew it was, like, meta, with Nic Cage playing himself, or something. Whatever; I will watch pretty much anything he’s in (the only movie of his that really disappointed me was The Pig (2021) – grim, boring, depressing, no redeeming qualities IMO; weirdly, I’ve heard that this is Nic Cage’s personal favorite of his movies?!).

So I had zero expectations, and ended up very pleasantly surprised!

For one, the humor. I have a pretty weird, gen-Z type sense of humor (caused, probably, by overexposure to internet memes and shitposting), so I typically don’t find movies funny, especially not comedies. But this one was genuinely hilarious. The part where Pedro Pascal’s character, high on LSD, turns and laughs at the two men who are, supposedly, “watching them” — you just know they were having so much fun filming that. And just in general, you have to respect Nic Cage for making so much fun of himself in this movie. It was honestly such a brilliant career move, on his part; really the smartest thing he could have done, as an actor, at this point.

For two, the story writing. I am always so in awe of a really smart, intricate, perfectly-assembled plotline, in which all the pieces are parts of a well-oiled machine. When no moment, no word of dialogue, is wasted, and things keep hearkening back to other things. I’m especially awed by mysterious and suspenseful or exciting stories; how do writers do that?! Like, the way the random monologue he recites at the beginning makes another appearance at the end, where it fits perfectly. And the way the movie that the two main characters are writing ends up coming true, and then becoming a movie again. It was just so freaking clever.

But the best thing about this movie was not the humor, nor the story writing, but: the friendship.

It really is, essentially, a Platonic love story. How often do you see those, in movies and shows? Especially about straight men? Almost never, right? I can’t think of any others, and I’ve been thinking for several days. I guess there was Napoleon Dynamite (2004); but I wouldn’t call that a Platonic love story, even though the friendship with Pedro was one of the biggest story elements; that was more of a self-discovery story. Can you think of any other movies that glorify male friendship, or, you might even say non-romantic soul mates, like this one does?

If only there were more shows, movies, and songs about best friendship rather than romance! I feel like our culture would be so much healthier. Speaking as someone who is admittedly obsessed with drama, romance, and sexual tension in stories, I really think we as a society are way too obsessed with such things. An alien observing our pop culture would probably think that sex and romance are all humans care about, the whole purpose of our existence. I remember being a little kid of perhaps seven, asking my Dad “why is it that every song on the radio is about someone’s boyfriend or girlfriend?”, and he was like: “You’ll understand when you’re older. 😊” And yeah, I do now, but also, I don’t. We should celebrate and glorify best friendship more.

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Friendship is such a fascinating thing to me, as someone with AvPD who doesn’t really have friends. I haven’t had a “best friend” of the Nic Cage/Pedro Pascal, Saweetie/Doja Cat variety since I was, probably like 14. I have some excellent friends with whom I correspond online, and I love them dearly, and those friendships are really all I need, in the way of a social life. But that type of close, intimate friendship where you do stuff like: share clothes, call on the phone whenever, get in an argument and then make up, talk about gross personal stuff, and call each other “bitch” for fun? I can only fantasize! That level of intimacy is so crazy, so terrifying.

It’s scarier than a romantic relationship, IMO, because in a romantic relationship, there’s sort of a transactional element. The other person wants something from you, and you know what that is: affection, attention, sex; or, if you’re going about things the proper way, marriage. There are pretty clear expectations, usually, when it comes to romance. Whereas, with Platonic friends, it’s like… you want what from me? My company? Lol, why??! What could you possibly get out of that?! This is probably why, throughout my late teens and twenties, I had quite a few boyfriends, but almost zero girl friends (and of those few, none of them were what I’d call “close”).

Friendship is so cool, because, in theory, a friend literally just likes you for who you are, and doesn’t want anything from you except to just be around you. That’s kind of wild to me. What’s even more wild is that, to lots of people out there, this kind of relationship apparently comes naturally! They don’t even need to think about it! 🤯

Female best friendship is pretty well represented in the media, even if it’s usually portrayed only alongside a romantic relationship, like a background thing. But straight male friendship? An intimate and loving but completely non-sexual relationship between two grown men? I feel like you just don’t see it that much, in the mainstream media; am I wrong?

It’s such a cool thing, and honestly a sign of a really healthy and secure man IMO, for him to have close male friends. This is one thing I’ve always found really attractive, and fascinating, about my husband: as a grown-ass man, now in his late thirties, he still has best friends that he hangs out with, for no reason, just for fun. They will seriously just go to each other’s houses, with no specific plans, and, do what? Hang out? Talk?? I don’t know! To me that is wild! They even go out to eat together and stuff, and, like, text each other for support when they’re having a hard time. To my AvPD-having ass, that kind of stuff is just unfathomable, lol. As much as I give my husband a hard time about abandoning me to go chill with his bros, I must admit that his ability to maintain friendships is one of the coolest things about him (don’t tell him I said that).

But yeah, so, to get back to the point, Unbearable Weight represents beautifully this magical, fantastical phenomenon of human existence that deserves to be more celebrated and glorified in our society, and I love it for that reason. I’d love to see this become more of a thing.
Mith’s one issue with the movie “The Whale”

February 3rd, 2025

Warning: this post contains what I’d consider “spoilers” for the plot of the movie The Whale (2022). If you haven’t seen the movie already, definitely go watch it ASAP, then come back and read this if you want.

I’m late, I know. I’m always slow to see new movies. Even before I had children, I pretty much only ever went to a movie theater if someone else invited me. The last time I set foot in a movie theater was a rare occasion in September of 2022, when my husband and I went to see Nope for our birthday (we have the same birthday, four years apart, and we’re both big fans of Key & Peele, and loved Get Out, so we were pretty stoked about Nope; IMO the chimpanzee scenes were better than the alien ones, and creepy as heck).

But so anyway, true to form, I only just watched Darren Aronofsky’s highly-acclaimed film adaptation of the play The Whale a couple of nights ago, even though it’s apparently been out since 2022?!

What finally inspired me to watch it was: well, for one, my husband recently decided to delete Netflix because they keep hiking their ridiculous prices up (guess we’ll have to temporarily resubscribe in the fall for GBBO), so, since we canceled our subscription but still had the service for a few days, and we didn’t have a show to watch that night, we decided to just scroll Netflix like “well, let’s see if we can get anything out of this while we still have it.”

And, for two, I love Brendan Fraser as much as any other millennial, and had read that this movie was like his big comeback after Hollywood did him dirty and tried to ruin him. And, for three, as we were scrolling Netflix and I saw that they had this Brendan Fraser movie that I’d read a bit about, I noticed in the description that it was directed by Darren Aronofsky, of whom I’ve been a huge fan since I first saw Pi in like 2009 or ‘10 (it was shown to my class one day during an elective I was taking called “Magic, Science, and Religion”). Black Swan was huge for me, as I’m sure it was for anyone with an ED. In fact, that was one movie that I did go out to the theater alone to see (one day when I was desperately trying to find some reason to get the hell out of my house because it was a really bad ED day, so it was perfect). So already when I saw that name I was sold.

But also, for four, I saw that, obviously, the movie deals with the issue of weight/fatness, which, as you know, is an endlessly fascinating topic to me. And it was about a writer – a writing professor, actually, and I have a fair bit of experience with those (believe it or not). Plus, it sounded like one of those quiet, character-driven stories that I’m such a simp for. So, seeing all of this in the Netflix description, I told my husband to hit play immediately.

What I did not realize before watching The Whale was that it takes place in northern Idaho, as do pretty much all of this playwright’s works. I haven’t read the play – I’m not huge on reading plays, tbh, and have never really enjoyed reading one – but I looked up Samuel D. Hunter, and I guess he lives in and writes pretty much exclusively about the Idaho Panhandle. Which, if you know me, you know I absolutely flipped out about, because a certain fictional character of mine also hails from the Idaho Panhandle (his hometown even got a mention in the movie!). In fact, some years ago, I was so intent on learning about this character’s backstory in this location, that I once flew out there solo (a long flight, from where I live) and spent two weeks just hanging around the town, exploring, sleeping at a motel, getting a feel for the place – which was super weird, objectively, because it’s not really a tourist town, and I was just a lone 25 year old woman who didn’t know a single (real) person in that town, and it was just seriously super weird, but super interesting for me. I was delighted to find that the place was exactly the way I’d seen it in my imagination – even more so, if that makes sense. The whole time I was there I kept looking around at the most mundane things and going “but of course!!”

So, yeah, I kind of have a weird passion for that whole area, and one thing I loved very much about The Whale is that it manages to capture a very strong sense of northern Idaho without once leaving that little apartment. In college, one of my most memorable courses was one called “Writing About Place,” and the professor (whom I idolized, and whom I’ve mentioned on this blog before) once said something along the lines of – I paraphrase roughly – every story is irrevocably tied to a place. It must always be true that that story could only happen in that place. You really feel that, about The Whale and northern Idaho.

The other thing I did not realize before watching this movie, but that pleasantly surprised me, was that it is very much about God and religion, as well as the ethics of sexuality and marriage: both favorite topics of mine. However: this brings me (finally) to the actual point of this blog post.

This movie was perfect, IMO. I could not stop watching it. My husband and I always watch something on TV at night after the kids are in bed, and always, if it’s a movie or a longer episode of TV, anything longer than like an hour, I need to pause it halfway through and go to bed, because I am old and tired and a mom of young kids. But this one, I could not pause. I stayed up stupidly late to finish it, and felt it the next day, but had no regrets. It was riveting and wildly entertaining and also brilliant, and forced me to experience Emotions, which I simultaneously love and hate. To say nothing of the obviously-stellar acting. All in all, flawless.

But actually there was, for me, just one flaw. And it’s not even so much a flaw of the movie itself, so much as perhaps a flaw in the understanding of the individual(s) who created it.

It’s in that scene right near the end, when Thomas shows back up to the apartment all excited because he believes he’s finally figured out why God brought him to Charlie’s place. Thomas explains to Charlie that he (Charlie) is suffering because he’s living according to the flesh (accurate), and that God wants him (Charlie) to turn to Him and allow Him to help him. And Charlie calmly debates him on this, and the conversation turns to Charlie’s deceased lover Alan, who died tragically, and it ends up reaching a point where Charlie asks Thomas: do you really think God turned His back on Alan because they (Alan and Charlie) were in love? And Thomas, with whom I’ve pretty much loosely/tentatively/conditionally agreed this whole time, thinks about it, and admits: Yes.

That’s the flaw!! I feel like the filmmaker was hereby trying to represent the POV of religious folks in general, and failed. Well, maybe certain sadly misguided Protestants out there think this, that God turns His back on sinners – but well-formed Christians know that’s not true. God never turns His back on us. As we see in the story of the Prodigal Son, God is a loving father, always waiting for us with open arms! In His mercy He has given us free will, so that we can choose to love Him. He could have just created us to be robots with no choice but to love Him, but that wouldn’t be meaningful, would it – it’d be dumb and sad, the same way it’d just be depressing and sad to be married to a robot you’d built yourself for the express purpose of loving you. I don’t know about you, but I want my spouse to freely choose me with his whole heart and mind, just as we are free to choose, or not choose, God. God does not turn His back on us. If we go to hell, it’s because we chose hell, and God in His mercy is honoring our free will, even though it saddens Him greatly when we turn away from Him. I’m clearly no catechist or apologist here, but I think this more or less sums up the correct, Catholic POV of God’s attitude toward sinners.

It’s unfortunate that the filmmaker(s) seem to think we Christians believe in a God who would abandon us for making mistakes. No wonder they resent us so much! I find myself wishing that Charlie had been approached by a Catholic, instead of whatever weird sect Thomas was supposed to belong to (in the play, he was actually Mormon, apparently, and was called Elder Thomas. How weird is that, a nineteen year old “Elder!”).

I feel like the creators have perhaps not been exposed to any real Christians. Which is sad, but unsurprising, considering that I’m pretty sure the SSPX presence in the Idaho panhandle is approximately zero. 😀

But, perhaps I misunderstood what they were doing here. Maybe they were not actually trying to comment on religion as a whole. Maybe Thomas only spoke for himself, and for that weird Mormonish flavor of Protestantism in which he was formed. Maybe, since this story is so firmly grounded in northern Idaho, it was only commenting on the particular brand of religion that’s widely available out there. But, somehow, I really got the impression that his character was meant as a symbol of Christianity in general. I wonder what you all think.

And to be fair, Thomas was, in spite of all that, portrayed pretty sympathetically, as a realistic, fleshed-out, sincere and smart human being, albeit somewhat naïve. You don’t often see that in anti-religion stories – usually, they’ll portray religious folks as shallow, stuck-up, two-dimensional idiots – so, I appreciated that. But they seemed to imply that he will eventually “outgrow” his religion. And I got the vibe that that’s what the writer(s) think about religion – that it’s something to be outgrown. Which is unfortunate.

However. I think, in trying to show that religion is wrong and bad, they actually managed to show us something true and beautiful about religion and God.

Because they did a great job of portraying sinners sympathetically, too. Charlie obviously epitomizes “living in sin” – I mean, he left his wife and child for “love,” which is an irrational, unreliable, and flesh-driven phenomenon, regardless of your sexual orientation – and yet, he is a smart, wise, and compassionate guy, and you really feel for him, and see where he is coming from. It could be said also that he is gluttony incarnate, but, I don’t think he can be held accountable for gluttony, because he’s clearly an addict and emotionally unwell. It’s like how someone who commits suicide when they’re very depressed cannot be held accountable for this terrible sin, due to their disrupted mental state. Although Charlie, like any addict, obviously carries some responsibility for getting himself into this position in the first place. But, you can understand why he did. You completely relate and sympathize (at least, I did).

And for that reason, this movie actually does a really good job of portraying God’s mercy. When a story causes you, the viewer/reader to see things from God’s POV, and you see the goodness and spark of divine in a character, no matter how disgusting that person’s behavior – you start to see them through the lens of God’s mercy – that is, I think, the mark of a really worthwhile story.

So perhaps they might have messed up in trying to portray religion, but, regardless, I personally think they did a really good job (whether intentionally or not) of making a movie that shows us something about God: something edifying and true and beautiful.
TOP 10: TV characters in a bake-off, Season 2

January 8th, 2025

You probably already saw Season One of this little concept, but, in case you just randomly stumbled upon this post, feel free to go check that one out for a bit of context/explanation.

I wasn’t able to represent as many great characters and shows as I wanted, so, decided to produce Season Two!

12. Asher from The Curse. I mean, sorry but pretty much his whole personality is “loser,” so it was to be expected that he’d go home first. No one even remembers what he baked. Perhaps it was a very, very tiny eclair. I feel bad for him.

11. Zim from Invader Zim. The only reason he didn’t go home in week one was because Asher is such an incredible loser. Apparently Zim thought that winning a baking competition would lead to world domination, so he’s been discreetly asking his computer for “human recipes” using “human ingredients,” and the end result was something so gruesome and disturbing that it had to be blurred out for TV, one of the judges quit on the spot, and the other two passed out and threw up, respectively. Probably in his best interest that he left, because Holly could see through his human disguise from a mile away.

10. Trent from Daria. Can he actually bake anything other than weed brownies? Evidently not. He and Freddy have obviously been high this whole time.

9. Freddy (a.k.a. Fredward) from The Gentlemen. Not a serious baker, as he has never lifted a finger to do any sort of productive work in his life; he’s just here because he lost a bet. He doesn’t even know what any of these ingredients do, and has been drunk the whole time. His final “cake” was an unbaked vat of improperly mixed components, including a lot of booze. He’s spent most of his time here mercilessly picking on Dylan, Gilbert, Ryan, and Asher, while slinking around trying to avoid the menacing stare of Sims.

8. Jack Rooney from The Three Body Problem. He was not too bad, and I think he could have gone a lot further. His cockiness and humor made him adorable, plus he had a gift for self-promoting by incorporating products from his brand “Jack’s Snacks” into all of his bakes, which was a fun sweet-and-salty twist. He, Dylan, and Ryan got along well.

7. Dylan from Severance. This guy is quite a decent baker, a bit of a know-it-all, and never seemed stressed by the time crunch like the other bakers. His bakes were always technically very proficient, but the judges thought his cake was a bit dry and bland in this last challenge.

6. Gilbert from Bodkin. Gilbert has been a great contestant, really cheerful and upbeat, and bakes with a lot of heart, but kind of clumsy. His tart shell fell apart today, and tart filling oozed out everywhere in a sloppy unappealing mess. The other contestants are sorry to see him go (except for Sims, who finds him intolerable, and Bev, who hates everyone), because he was the type to abandon his own station to help others out when they were in a pinch.

5. Tobert from Only Murders in the Building. He has a lot of skill, and is a fan favorite, especially among women, because of his striking blue eyes. His bakes often incorporate daring flavors and exotic ingredients which he’s encountered on his world travels as a documentary filmmaker – tonka bean, pandan, saffron, curry spice blends, stuff like that, and it almost always works. He didn’t make any critical mistakes, just got bested by the outstanding talent of the remaining four.

4. Ryan Two from Dark Matter. It’s one thing after another for this Ryan!! First he wakes up from a hangover in a completely different life where he’s a rich and famous award-winning neuroscientist, and now he’s on a baking competition show? It keeps getting weirder and weirder! But he’s freaking brilliant, and knows all about chemical compounds and such, so he’s turned out to be an amazing baker – his pastry, especially, is flawless, and his plated desserts very sophisticated and modern. He didn’t expect to make it this far, and is still confused and just wants to go home, so he’s not disappointed.

Presenting our finalists:

3. Bev Keane from Midnight Mass. She may be insufferable, but she knows what she’s doing in the kitchen; her style is rustic, traditional, nostalgic, and just perfectly sweet. She could have won, but she got disqualified after the first challenge because she was caught trying to poison her fellow finalists (our winner was the one who caught her).

2. Robert Sims from Silo. He’s not great at baking, it’s just that everyone is too scared of him to send him home. And he’s relied on covert comms from his wife to talk him through a lot of these recipes. It’s pretty obvious by now, but the judges are afraid to call him out, because, I mean, look at him, he looks like he would not hesitate to chuck you off a cliff without warning and then just go about his day like nothing happened.

But even he was no match for:

1. Holly Gibney from The Outsider. How could she not win? She knows everything. She has some kind of sixth sense about what’s going to happen with any given thing, like, a few episodes ago she randomly threw out a whole batch of cupcake batter for no apparent reason, she just knew something was going to go wrong with it, so she remade it just in time. Stuff like that keeps happening with her. Fan theories abound. Even Ryan and Sims are intimidated by her knowledge. She doesn’t seem too excited about the victory or the prize money, and is plainly annoyed by all the confetti and fanfare.
Ranking the PAW Patrol Pups as Grooming Clients

January 7th, 2025

As some of you may know, I was, in a past life, a dog groomer at a corporate salon, for about seven years. While I do not miss clocking in for a job, I do miss some things about it: hanging out with my coworkers, mostly. Socially it could be a pretty toxic, gossippy environment, but virtually all of my coworkers were genuinely lovely individuals, good-hearted, who, despite the communal petty bitchiness (inevitable, when you put a bunch of twentysomething women in a fishbowl together and apply pressure), actually looked out for each other; and their company and conversation could often make a workday lots of fun. I also miss certain customers: many of the pet parents were gracious and pleasant and really appreciated what we did for them, even when it wasn’t perfect. Bless those people! I still think often of a lot of my clients from those days.

And obviously, I miss the doggos! (And yes, I still say “doggo,” I’m old.) Getting to interact with that many dogs per day was truly a privilege. I’ve always liked animals, but being a groomer really deepened my appreciation and love for dogs, both as individuals and as a species.

But, I left that job almost five years ago to stay home with my kids, who are now 4, 3, and 1.5, and are, predictably, all huge fans of the show PAW Patrol. Now, normally, I don’t let my kids absorb this kind of obnoxious brainrot, but, listen, sometimes when you’re solo-parenting three toddlers, and then you get sick for a few days, you do what you got to do to survive.

Thus, my days are no longer full of real dogs, but rather animated superhero ones, and I can’t help but reflect on what it might have been like if I’d met them in a past life. Here are the PAW Patrol pups ranked in order of how much I would like to have them on my grooming table:

10. Everest. I feel almost traitorous putting her in last place, because she’s my girls’ favorite, but, anyone who’s ever been a groomer knows that grooming a Husky is not for the faint of heart! Currently having flashbacks to a bathing bunker full of flying white hair (you’d have to wear a mask, or just wrap your nose and mouth in a towel, balaclava-style, to avoid inhaling it) while the wildly-dancing Husky’s shrill, relentless song of protest pierces through the roar of the velocity dryer, and you just know that they can hear her all over the store, and they probably think you’re torturing her. Then later the drains would all be clogged with wads of hair the size of my head. And even after all that, the dog would still go home slightly damp. I’d be up for it on a good day when I was fully caffeinated, but, a Husky will take it out of you for sure.

9. Chase. Nothing against GSDs, but I’m wary of them, since the only serious bite I ever got in seven years was from a GSD. Plus, they are so big, and tend to be very high-energy, especially the young ones. If you see one of these on your schedule, get ready for a full body workout.

8. Rubble. Brachycephalic dogs are, actually, my favorite, as you may know, and whenever a Bulldog or a Boston came in, it absolutely made my day! However, it was also always a bit high stress when they came in. Because short-nosed dogs, especially English bulldogs, are prone to respiratory and cardiac issues, which makes them a poor candidate for blow-drying or really anything slightly stressful at all. Basically, if the dog showed the slightest signs of getting worked up, we’d have to send them home unfinished, which always pains a groomer’s heart. And because of their health concerns you can’t even kennel them, so you’d have to sit there with them waiting for their Mom to come get them while your other clients are sitting in the kennels, waiting for you to finish their haircuts, and the clock is ticking. Still, Rubble is definitely the pup I’d most want to adopt.

7. Rocky. Rocky is actually my favorite character on the show, and he looks like he’d be fun to groom (I loved working with those scruffy, wiry coats). But, only thing is, he’s afraid of getting wet. That’s like his whole schtick in the show. It’s never fun bathing a dog who hates the bath, and good luck doing a good haircut on a dog who’s not clean.

6. Zuma. I love labs! They’re so goofy and dopey and affectionate. But, they can be tiring to work with. They’re so playful, and they’re such solid chonks with such thick hair that it can just be really exhausting to get them all the way clean and dry. When they don’t want to cooperate, it can feel like wrestling a hairy walrus. (As you are probably starting to see, I am more of a small dog person.)

5. Sweetie. She’s definitely spoiled, so I expect she might be snippy to work with; plus, she’s a Westie, and in my experience, those little buttheads just love to bite! However, I like their coats, and in general I typically really liked working with the prissy little white floofy things, especially when they were well taken care of at home. A dog who gets brushed at home daily and professionally groomed regularly, is almost always a dream to work with. And Sweetie’s pet parent is literally the Princess of Barkingburg, so, let’s be real, she’s probably the best-groomed of all these pups.

4. MarshaIl. Clumsiness aside, he would probably be a pretty easy client. A Dalmatians’s hair is so short that, like a Pit Bull, they’d air-dry in mere minutes. A quick rub with a rubber curry brush and he’d be good to go. Although, Marshall’s a klutz, so he’d probably be one of those dogs who’s always sidestepping off the table, so, you might need to beseech one of your coworkers to stand on his other side while you work on him (not an uncommon occurrence in the salon).

3. Skye. A cockapoo is almost always a great client. They’re sweet-natured, and most of the ones I met were well taken care of and well trained, which I assume Skye would be, I mean, look, she’s only a puppy and already flies a helicopter, so. Plus, they’re small and cute and their poodlish hair is so fun to work with.

2. Tracker. Some people are wary of chihuahuas, but I always loved them, short haired and long haired alike! They’re easy to groom, and yes, they can be feisty, but with that cute little face and big ears, it’s hard to take their rage seriously. Tracker seems chill and eager to help, so he’d probably be a dream to work with.

And finally, my pick for most desirable client:

1. Liberty. My heart always leapt for joy when I saw a Longhaired Dachshund on my schedule! Their coat and stature make them really fun and easy to work with (I preferred the wiry ones, and Liberty looks more silky, but still). They’re pretty hardy for their size, so not likely to be sickly or stressful on the grooming table. True, sometimes they put up a fight for their nail trim, but honestly, an angry sausage is no problem – I’d much rather wrestle an angry Oscar Meyer Wiener than an angry GSD or lab. If Liberty’s mom called for an appointment, I’d definitely book her on myself.
TOP 10: TV characters in a bake-off

June 16th, 2024

ETA: I don’t watch many of these shows anymore, because a lot of them are bad; but, I still enjoy the characters out of context, and this was a fun little game, so wanted to keep the post alive anyway!

I never used to care for TV before I married my husband. Had I not been so lucky as to meet him, I probably would have lived my whole life without owning a TV or subscribing to any streaming services at all, except maybe FORMED. Just one of the many, many reasons why I’m super lucky to have met my husband!

When he bought us our first TV, I didn’t like it. It was big, it was ugly, it was expensive; I felt, at best, wary of it. My heart began to thaw a bit, though, when my husband suggested that our inaugural viewing be my favorite movie of all time (The Wicker Man, the 2006 remake; yes, I will die on this hill); I even threw a little viewing party for us with a themed dinner!

And in the weeks and months that followed, I realized that the TV had another perk: it made at-home workouts way more fun and easy, because I could follow along with any of the millions of free workout videos on YouTube. It’s kind of hard to do that using the tiny little screen of a phone. So now, the TV and I became friends.

And eventually, at last, I discovered the joy of TV shows. My husband is a movie-and-TV genius – he knows pretty much every movie and show that’s ever been made, and scrolls IMDB for fun – so he introduced me to the world of streaming services.

Before, I always thought shows were kind of stupid. The only ones that I appreciated were things like Jeopardy!, cooking shows, HGTV programs, documentaries, and the like. I had no respect for TV as a storytelling medium. Even when my favorite college professor, the one whom I idolized (and whose voice lives on in my head forever as my inner writing critic), once remarked during class that some of the best story-writing these days was being done for television – even then I looked down my nose at it. People should just read books, I thought, haughtily.

Which they should, of course – but overall I was wrong: TV shows are fun, and some of them are brilliant!

Although I’ve come to love lots of shows of all different genres, my favorite kind of show remains the baking competition show. It goes without saying that GBBO takes the cake (ha) when it comes to the baking competition show – but I devour all of them with glee. My current favorites are the seasonal Baking Championships on HBO Max – Holiday, Spring, Summer, and Halloween (I actually don’t care for the Halloween one; too much campy gore and horror and demonish stuff: gross; I wish they’d just do a nice, pleasant Fall-themed one instead, but, oh well).

And so: the idea for this post arose from my obsession with baking competition shows, combined with all of the other shows that I love. My husband and I like to ask each other fun hypothetical questions, it’s one of our favorite games; and together we came up with this one: which TV characters, from any show, would you cast as contestants on a baking competition show? Obviously there have to be twelve; that’s the standard with baking competition shows. (The perfect format starts with twelve bakers, and eliminates the weakest one each episode, until there are three left in the grand finale, with the winner being chosen from those final three.)

So without further ado: if I could choose any characters from any TV show to be the twelve contestants on a new season of the baking championship, these are the ones that I’d choose – listed here in the order in which I think they’d go home:

12. Dr. Iggy Frome from New Amsterdam. He’s a fan favorite, and most of his fellow contestants love him (especially Tanya, she gloms onto him real fast), but, he’d bungle something in one of the challenges – he’d probably get nervous and do something idiotic, like, mention in front of the camera that incest is fine because, you know, love is love, after all, or replace the sugar with salt, or something. On his way out, he’d give everyone a giant hug and a tearful but uplifting speech about how it’s okay to fail.

11. Tanya from White Lotus. In fact, she was probably in the bottom two with Iggy last episode. She’s been tipsy this whole time, and probably dumped a whole bottle of booze into one of her bakes, then in the next challenge slipped in spilled batter and fell spectacularly, and had to be escorted off the set by medics, thus unable to finish the challenge in time. Her fellow contestants are glad to see her go.

10. Eddie from Stranger Things. He did okay; he did his best. I don’t imagine he’s much of a baker. It was just his time to go. He’ll be missed.

9. Jean-Ralphio from Parks and Recreation. He’s been loud and boastful and cocky this whole time, insisting that he’s the winner and also the best dressed. The other bakers hate him, and hate how he sings while he’s baking (Izaya actually stabbed him in the first challenge this week). And he’s only made it this far by cheating, and because he was lucky enough to be teamed up with Marcus in the Team Challenge last episode. He throws a tantrum when the host announces he’s going home, and threatens to call his dad (Kendall laughs at this), and security guards have to walk him off the set.

8. Martha from Baby Reindeer. She’s actually a decent baker, and bakes with fierce intensity and devotion; she does a lot of bold, amibitious flavor combinations, like smoked chili pepper + tropical fruit, but she tends to fall short in the decorating department. She’s eliminated because she was a little too bold this time: she way overdid it on the spice, or the alcohol, or maybe she overfilled her pastries so the overspiced filling was oozing out in a gory mess. Just way too much for the judge’s palates. But, she’s not unhappy to be going home; she’s a very busy woman, after all, and knows she is sorely missed at her demanding job, and can’t wait to get home to her precious boyfriend.

7. Kendall Roy from Succession. He’s not a baker, and doesn’t know his way around the kitchen at all, but has managed to make it this far just by being insanely rich. I don’t even know how that works; it just does. But in this episode, he was high as a kite on park coke, and made a fatal error, like, baking an entire silver spoon into his pie, or vomiting into the ice cream maker, or something. As the host is telling him he’s eliminated, Kendall interrupts and says that, you know what, he’s done with this show, he’s leaving, it’s just not worth his precious time, he wishes you all the best, and besides, the prize money is barely even pennies to him, anyway. To this day he maintains that he would have won had he chosen to stay on. (Side note: my favorite Roy is actually Roman, but I think Kendall would be more fun to watch on a baking show, because he’s such a train wreck. )

6. Fr. Khatri from From. He’s low-key a really good baker, and has been a dark horse this whole time; lots of viewers thought he would be a finalist. But he made the mistake of helping Patricia in the last challenge when she was running out of time to ice her cupcake wreath, thereby sacrificing the finish on his own cupcake wreath, and this act of charity would be his demise. He was very gracious as he left, and attributed everything to God’s will.

5. Izaya Orihara from Drrr!. (“But Mith, why,” you may ask, “do you like that silly anime so much?” The reason is: Izaya.) It was actually a super close race between him and Patricia, who were in the bottom two this episode – Izaya’s cake looked much tidier, but his flavors were kind of dead inside, while Patricia’s supposedly tasted better, according to the judges. The consensus on Reddit seems to be that the judges just let Patricia through because she’s a single mom and always gets very emotional on camera about her boys back home. Anyway, I’m surprised Izaya wasn’t disqualified before now, seeing as how he’s threatened every other contestant with violence or made them bleed at least once. I guess it makes for good TV.

4. Patricia Tillerson from Outer Range. She’s formidable, and experienced, with decades of all-American dessert-baking under her belt. She’s always talking about her three grown sons and their tragic story and alluding to her crazy ex-husband and playing the victim, which makes her sympathetic to a lot of the viewers. She goes home not because of a mistake, but just because all the other remaining bakers are really, really good.

And the three finalists are:

3. Scanlan Shorthalt from The Legend of Vox Machina. Not a baker by any means, but he has that magic hand thing that he does, and the lute, so, basically he can convince anyone of anything, and has weaseled his way out of the bottom two several times now. He’s also seduced 10/11 of the other bakers (not Angela), all three of the judges, and the host, by this point; plus all the viewers find him weirdly enchanting, so it’s like he just can’t go home, no matter how chaotic his bakes are. He really wanted that prize money.

2. Marcus from The Bear. Obviously the best baker here, and the only one who’s classically trained; he’s won the most challenges out of everyone. He really should have won the whole thing. But in the final challenge, he got a bit too heated and emotional, and ended up making one tiny mistake and being bested by…

1. Angela from The Office. The baddest B in TV history? I think so. Her bakes are simple but flawless. She’s neat as a pin; she’s been making little passive-aggressive remarks about the other contestants this whole time; viewers can’t stand her. She accepts the prize money with an icy little smile and says something about spending it all on her cats.

Side note: Obviously I know Marcus would be the rightful winner out of these twelve. But, if you’ve ever watched a baking competition show, you know that the ones who seem like the rightful winners are often not the actual winners: for reference, see: Juergen from GBBO, Romy from Spring Baking Championship S8, and Alex from Spring Baking Championship S10.

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What do you think? Did I choose the right winner? Who would you cast? I also made a Season Two!